Method and apparatus for the use of network coding in a wireless communication network

A receiver circuit configured for packet decoding at a first network node, said receiver circuit comprising one or more processing circuits configured to:

• receive a first constituent packet and a network-coded packet formed for transmission to the first network node by combining information bit groups from the first constituent packet with information bit groups from at least a second constituent packet;
• generate first soft values for the information bit groups of the first constituent packet and second soft values for corresponding information bit groups of the network-coded packet based on joint probabilities of information bits within each information bit group of the first constituent packet and the network-coded packet, respectively;
• generate third soft values for the information bit groups of the second constituent packet based on jointly evaluating the first and second soft values;
• and
• derive information bits for the second constituent packet from the third soft values.