System and method for partitioning resources for joint decoding in the downlink

A base station comprising:

• a joint decoding facilitator configured to generate at least one message for at least one user equipment (UE), wherein the at least one UE is to jointly decode respective data in each of at least two downlink transmissions, the at least one message providing information indicating how resources are partitioned by the base station into a plurality of resource partitions;
• the base station configured to:
• transmit the at least one message;
• and
• for each resource partition of the plurality of resource partitions:
• transmit data for a UE using a plurality of resources of the resource partition.

A user equipment (UE) comprising:

• at least one antenna configured to receive at least one message from each base station of at least one base station, the at least one message from each base station providing information indicating how resources are partitioned by the base station into a respective plurality of resource partitions;
• a joint decoder configured to obtain jointly decoded data by:
• utilizing the information to identify respective resources for each of at least two downlink transmissions;
• and
• jointly decoding respective data that was transmitted on each of the at least two downlink transmissions using the respective resources.