The transmission of data via a differential bus by means of balanced signals is not only reliable, but also offers the advantage that in the event of various single faults, i.e. faults concerning only one of the two lines or faults where the two lines of the differential bus are short-circuited, data transmission is still possible, be it with a reduced reliability. To this end, both lines are connected to a number of comparators which have different threshold values so that the nature of a fault occurring can be determined and, in dependence thereon, the comparator output can be determined wherefrom the recovered data signal must be derived.