A method and an apparatus for reducing power consumption of a decoder in a communication system are disclosed. In a communication system communicating a packet, the packet can be arranged among slots of a communication channel so that each slot following the first slot contains redundant bits of the packet with respect to the first slot. A receiving station estimates quality metric of a received slot, determines a quality metric threshold, and delimits an interval in accordance with the modified quality metric threshold. If the estimated quality metric is outside of the interval, the segment is decoded. The decoding process comprises delimiting a plurality of intervals in accordance with the quality metric threshold, associating each of the plurality of intervals with one of a plurality of parameters, determining an interval from the plurality of intervals into which the estimated quality metric belongs; and decoding the received signal for a number of iterations equal to the one of a plurality of parameters associated with the determined interval. In the course of the decoding process, a stopping criterion is evaluated, and the decoding process is terminated in accordance with the stopping criterion.