Method and receiver for processing a multi-user signal

The invention relates to the field of signal processing for telecommunications, and concerns a method and receiver for processing a multi-user signal. In the method of the invention, a multi-user signal is processed by a receiver using an iterative receiver process including the steps of (a) receiving a signal transmission including a plurality of user signals on a TDMA channel, (b) detecting one or more user signals and determining transmission channel estimates for each said user signal, (c) deriving a soft signal for a first user by subtracting, if available, weighted representations of other user signals from the detected user signal of said first user, (d) calculating a-posteriori probabilities for each symbol comprising the soft signal, (e) refining said probabilities utilizing the transmission channel estimate for the first user in an iterative decoding algorithm, wherein a probability is either partially or fully decoded depending on the application of decoder convergence criteria, and (f) returning to step (a), (b) or (c) with the refined probabilities forming part of the weighted representations to be subtracted from detected user signals of other users. This method allows for efficient detection and decoding of multiple user signals by controlling the behaviour of an iterative decoding algorithm operating within an iterative receiver process.