A radio frequency communications system (100) includes wireless terminals (102) and base sites (104). The wireless terminals communicate with the base sites over a radio frequency channel (106). The base sites are interconnected to each other and other network elements via a packet network. The communication system has a radio frequency channel (400) with time slots (406, 408) for transmission of both delay-sensitive data, such as streaming audio and video, and non-delay-sensitive data. A method and apparatus are provided for determining whether a time slot in the radio frequency channel is to be allocated to delay-sensitive data or non-delay-sensitive data (704, 706, 708). Each packet of data transmitted over the wireless channel has a type of service field (900). The type of service field has a precedence or priority value (902) and a service type (904). The priority values are used to determine which packet should be transmitted across the radio frequency channel next and the service type determines the transmission protocol.