Abstract: A communication system (10) implemented to be specifically matched to the time and spatially dependent statistics of a transmission channel (36). The communication system (10) is used for broadcasting over the channel (36) to users in a coverage region (18). The communication system (10) includes a transmitter (12) having an error correction encoder (30) and a weighted interleaver (32). The error correction encoder (30) includes a first input to receive data bits and a first output. The error correction encoder (30) expands each data bit received at said input by an encoder rate. The weighted interleaver (32) includes a second input to receive the expanded data bits and a second output. The weighted interleaver (32) has a non-uniform delay distribution between a minimum delay and a maximum delay to interleave the expanded data bits by the non-uniform delay distribution.