Abstract: An interleaver and interleaving method each includes two stages, and is useful in coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (COFDM) wireless local area networks. A first stage performs a first block permutation and a second stage performs bit order permutation to effectuate a second group permutation. A corresponding de-interleaver does just the opposite at the receiver. A double-buffer version includes writing data into one memory block in a first order while reading data from the second block in a second order, with the first and second orders selected to effectuate the first block permutation.