Abstract: Methods and apparatus are presented for supporting the transmission of variable-rate vocoder frames over non-compatible communication channels. Variable-rate vocoder frames are reformatted as cargo in multi-rate vocoder frames. At the receiver, a determination is made as to whether a received multi-rate vocoder frame carries a variable-rate vocoder frame cargo. If a variable-rate vocoder frame is cargo, then a determination of the frame type is made. Various embodiments for conveying cargo information are presented.