Abstract: A wireless-access communications system, such as a CDMA cellular radio-telephone system (FIG. 2), comprises a packet-switched communications network (202, 207, 201) that interconnects cells (base stations; 202) with each other and with the public telephone network (100). Traffic of individual calls is packetized, and packet-bearing frames (300 in FIG. 7) of a plurality of calls are then statistically multiplexed and frame-relayed through the network to yield the high capacity, efficiency, and speed of traffic transport and handoff required for a CDMA cellular system. At each call processing unit (264 in FIG. 5), individual calls are handled by individual service circuits (602 and 612) which perform speech-processing functions such as coding and decoding, tone insertion, and echo cancellation, and packet-to-circuit-switched-PCM traffic conversion.