Bandwidth utilization within a cellular network is increase by reducing the amount of traffic to be transmitted, in particularly in traffic that has already been compressed. An encoded signal that comprises an umber of frame signals (or simply frames) is received and each frame is classified in accordance with one or more pre-defined characterization criterion. The characterization can include identifying the frames as speech type signals, such as voice signals or noise signal. Voice signal frames may be further characterized as a stationary frames (where the voice signal is essentially at a constant level), as a transition frame between phonemes, and the like. A noise type of frame may be further characterized as a silence frame, a background noise and the like. Video frame types can be characterized as a frame with a rapid / slow change in respect to the preceding frame, a frame with a rapid / slow change in respect to pixels in that frame, and the like. Depending on the classification of each frame, the encoded signal may be formatted and be replaced by a corresponding representation signal, wherein the number of bits comprised in a plurality of the formatted signals, is less than the number of bits comprised in the received encoded signal. Consequently, a formatted frame signal may be represented by a selected corresponding representation signal, or by a number of selected a corresponding representation signals which correspond to the sub-frame signals, and when taken together, carry the information required for the regeneration or reconstruction of the entire encoded frame signal.