A transmitter having two or more transmit antennas includes a bit parser for providing two or more data streams to an interleaver of the transmitter. The bit parser receives bits representing data to be transmitted over the transmit antennas, and parses the bits into a number of data streams equal to a number of the transmit antennas such that the bits are divided into bit groups, each having no more than two of the bits, and each of the data streams include non-adjacent ones of the bit groups.