Wireless communication systems according to 3rd Generation standards allow for large flexibility in payload transmission. To signal the specific combination of transport block sizes multiplexed into one composite transport channel, a transport format combination indicator is transmitted in addition to the encoded payload data. The correct decoding of this transport format combination indicator codeword information is crucial to retrieve the correct number and size of transport blocks from the incoming data stream in the receiver, which can be both, the user equipment or the base station. The decoding apparatus (1) of the invention allows an in-time processing of the incoming data, while the decoding performance for the next codeword information is increased. Therefore, a codeword decision unit (15) determines a first codeword decision on the basis of a first codeword information received. This first codeword decision is usable for the processing of the first payload data. Then, the codeword decision unit (15) decides and outputs a second codeword decision on the basis of the first codeword information and the second codeword information. This second codeword decision has an improved reliability.