A method sends uplink control information from the user equipment to a serving node of a radio communications system by first encoding (1413) uplink control information bits into symbols. The encoded symbols are split (1415) into at least two groups of symbols for use to achieve diversity transmission. Each of the at least two groups of symbols are cyclically repeated (1417) to generate a repeated group for each of the at least two groups of symbols. Then the repeated groups are mapped (1421) each to different transmission ports of the user equipment for diversity transmission as uplink control information through a plurality of uplink transmission slots of the uplink subframe.