The described technology is generally directed towards adaptive interleaving in network communications systems based on one or more conditions with respect to user equipment. When conditions such as the speed of the user equipment indicate that performance can be increased by interleaving the data traffic, data is transmitted to the user equipment using an adaptive interleaver in the coding chain of MIMO systems. The adaptive interleaver is not used when conditions indicate performance is unlikely to improve. Adaptive interleaving may be performed in the frequency domain, in the frequency and time domain, or the frequency time and space domain. Multiple interleavers with different interleaving patterns may be used in the frequency domain and in the frequency and time domain. Adaptive interleaving may be based on one or more various criteria corresponding to the condition data received from the user equipment.