Abstract Turbo codes are extensively used in wireless communication standards due to its capacity approaching performance. Maximum-A-Posteriori (MAP) algorithm and Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm (SOVA) are widely accepted decoding algorithms for Turbo codes. SOVA is a variant of Viterbi Algorithm and is less complex with moderate error correction performance as compared to MAP algorithm. In this paper, the branch symmetry property of radix-2 butterfly has been incorporated in to the SOVA algorithm to reduce the complexity of branch metric computation. The simulation results show that the computational complexity is reduced without degrading the error correction performance. Turbo CODEC block with SOVA and the low complex SOVA has been created in GNU Radio and the results were verified.