The present invention discloses a method for transmitting a plurality of information streams (10) having variable data rates. A plurality of information streams (10) are multiplexed together into a common information frame (25). The information is channel encoded and multiplexed with a number of overhead bits (67) including encoding information on the multiplexed frame (65). The multiplexed frame is then demultiplexed into at least one channel frames (75) that are each transmitted over a separate code channel such that the first code channel always includes the overhead bit data.