Patent ID: 8184536

Claim:
A method for reducing error in a communication system, comprising: receiving a plurality of copies of a data segment, wherein the copies differ from one another; calculating a segment quality value for each received copy of the data segment, wherein calculating further comprises: comparing the copy to the other copies of the data segment; and deriving the segment quality value based on the results of the comparison; selecting one of the plurality of copies of the data segment based on the calculated segment quality values; and outputting the selected copy wherein each copy of the data segment is contained in a timeslot comprising an overhead field and a data field, the data field having one or more data sub-segments; calculating a timeslot quality value for each timeslot, wherein the segment quality value for an individual copy of a data segment is calculated based on the calculated timeslot quality value for the timeslot containing the individual copy of the data segment wherein calculating a timeslot quality value comprises calculating an overhead quality value for the overhead field; calculating a data quality value for each of the one or more data segments in the data field of the timeslot; and generating the transmission quality value by adding the calculated overhead quality value and the calculated data quality values.