A wireless bit-interleaved coded OFDM (BI-COFDM) multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system that improves the diversity seen by a convolutional decoder. The bit stream is interleaved first, then bits are mapped into symbols and then symbols are parsed into Nt separate streams, where t is the number of transmitters. A deinterleaver then performs the inverse permutation before sending the symbols to a Viturbi decoder. In another embodiment, a transmitting side bit-interleaver transforms an encoded and punctured bit stream using a first permutation, groups the transformed bit stream according to a desired constellation on one of Nt antennae, splits the transformed bit stream into separate streams accordingly and bit-interleaves/symbol-maps using a plurality of bit-interleavers/symbol-mappers to permute each stream using a second permutation. A receiving side performs the inverse operations of the transmitting side.