Abstract: A method of digital telecommunication via an electrical cable is provided, whereby the symbols of a data stream to be transmitted are supplied as a transmission signal to a transmission path, after undergoing a digital-to-analog conversion. The transmission signal is received and sampled at the end of the transmission path on a receiving side. To further process the received signal on the receiving side, a Viterbi decoder operating on the basis of a trellis diagram is used. The Viterbi decoder uses a number of feedback filters to determine branch or path metrics in the trellis diagram, where this number is a function of the number of states in the trellis diagram. To determine the branch metrics in the trellis diagram, separate first feedback filters (8) are only used up to a specifiable number of symbol intervals in the trellis diagram, or up to a specifiable length of feedback filters for all states in the trellis diagram.