Patent ID: 7099405

Claim:
A receiver for a communication system in which messages are transmitted as encoded signals derived from the messages, the receiver comprising: a signal reception unit for receiving signals; a buffer for storing received signals; a rate dematching unit for receiving signals at a selected one of a plurality of coding rates from the buffer, or from the signal reception unit, and converting their coding rate to a predefined coding rate; and a decoder for receiving the converted signals from the rate dematching unit or from the buffer, and decoding them to reconstruct the messages, the receiver being arranged, upon detection that a message has not been correctly decoded from a first signal, to request transmission within the communication system of a further signal derived from the message, and the decoder being arranged to process data derived from the further signal and from the first signal stored in the buffer, the receiver further being arranged, if the selected coding rate is higher than the predefined coding rate, to store in the buffer the signal received by the signal reception unit and to transmit the signal stored in the buffer to the rate dematching unit for conversion, and, if the selected coding rate is lower than the predefined coding rate, to transmit the signal received by the signal reception unit to the rate dematching unit, and to store in the buffer the converted signals from the rate dematching unit.