Abstract: A system and method for transparently transporting SONET virtual tributaries over a airlink are shown and described. According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention a hub is coupled to a SONET fiber optic channel which is adapted to receive and transmit SONET data packets over the fiber and to receive and transmit this information in a more efficient transport container over a wireless link to a remote subscriber system. Efficiency of bandwidth is achieved in the preferred embodiment through the use of compression of overhead bytes, dropping unnecessary path overhead information, dropping of redundant information, discarding reserved space, carrying payload in place of repetitive overhead information, and utilizing efficient error correction techniques.