The invention provides a method of puncturing an encoded data bit stream, and an equivalent apparatus. The method applies one or more puncturing patterns to puncture the encoded data bit stream to reduce the number of transmitted bits. In one aspect there is provided a method of puncturing an encoded data bit-stream in a wireless transmitter, the encoded data bit-stream including one or more information bits, the method including receiving the encoded data bit-stream, puncturing a first group of encoded data bits and a second remaining group of encoded data bits in the encoded data bit stream using a first puncturing code rate and a second puncturing code rate respectively, wherein the first puncturing code rate is predefined, and the second puncturing code rate is determined based on the number of data bits in the second remaining group of encoded data bits.