Abstract: Data communication system for transmitting data codewords of n bytes length over a communication channel (20) from a transmitter (10) comprising a hardware encoder (12) capable of receiving as input an information sequence of n−2t bytes and emitting as output a codeword of n bytes including n−2t information bytes and 2t redundant bytes to a receiver (24) comprising a hardware decoder (28) capable of detecting up to 2t byte-errors and correcting up to t byte errors; the transmitter (10) further comprising a software encoder (14) transforming, in combination with the hardware encoder (12), an information sequence of n−2s bytes with t<s≦2t into a modified sequence, the transmitter (10) emitting encoded codewords including n−2s information bytes and 2s redundant bytes, and the receiver (24) further comprising a software decoder (34) for correcting up to s byte-errors when the hardware decoder (28) has detected errors in the encoded codeword received from the communication channel (20