The invention is related to coding and decoding data, more particularly in microwave radio link systems. According to the invention, the sequence of data to be encoded at a transmitting end is split into at least two blocks, if the sequence is longer than a first predetermined length M. The splitting is performed so that the length first block is equal to the first predetermined length M. If the remaining sequence is shorter than a second predetermined length N, the second block comprises all of the remaining sequence. If the remaining sequence is longer than the second predetermined length N, the length of the second block is found by subtracting from the length of the remaining sequence the highest integer multiple of the second predetermined length, and the rest of the sequence is split into blocks of length N. If the sequence is shorter than the first predetermined length M, only one block is produced, and the sequence is padded with dummy values to form a sequence of length M. If the sequence is exactly M units long, the first and in that case the only block comprises the whole sequence. The blocks are then separately encoded with the desired coding function.
PRIORITY CLAIM
This is a national stage application under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.371 of international stage PCT application No. PCT/FI00/00860, filed on Oct. 5, 2000. Priority is claimed under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.119(a) and 35 U.S.C. .sctn.365(b) from Finnish Patent Application No. 19992148, which was filed in Finland on Oct. 5, 1999, and from which priority was properly claimed in the aforementioned international stage application.
