Communication system for digital cellular data.

A system and method deliver packetized data representing radio signals to and from cell sites (14,16,18,20), and to and from a destination point via a fast packet network (22). Each cell site includes an interface for packetizing the radio signals and transmitting the packetized data to its destination. The destination could be a delivery point at a switch connected to the telephone network (46), which then converts the packetized data into a form usable by the telephone network. Alternatively, the destination point could be another cell site, which then depacketizes the radio signal and retransmits the radio signal to another wireless communication device without connecting to the telephone network.