Abstract: An apparatus and method enabling a mobile station to transfer its communications between two dissimilar communications systems, for example, between a first communications system having a time continuous structure, such as a CDMA system, and an alternate communications system having a time discontinuous structure, such as a TDMA system. In one embodiment, the mobile station initiates a time-compressed mode of operation of the first system in which, for a portion of each frame, transmission is disabled, accesses the second system during the disabled periods and specifies to the first system frame structure information of the second system. The first system adjusts the time-compressed mode of operation so that communication with the mobile station occurs during `N` time slots of each frame, the widths and positions of each slot within each frame being set in order to avoid contention with communications to and from the second system.