Method and apparatus for real-time transmission of compressed data

A method for real-time transmission of compressed data, the method comprising:

• receiving both useful data and filling data as a data stream with a fixed data rate via a circuit-switched connection of a first communications network, wherein said data stream includes said compressed data;
• removing the filling data contained in the data stream with the constant data rate;
• processing the remaining useful data, contained in the data stream with the constant data rate, into a format compatible with a data stream with a variable data rate via a packet-oriented connection by embedding the useful data into the transmission format of the packet-oriented connection, wherein said variable data rate corresponds to a variable transmission bandwidth available for the subscriber connection;
• and
• transmitting the processed data stream with a variable data rate via a packet-oriented connection of a second communications network, wherein the packet-oriented connection comprises one of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) cells, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) cells, communicating quality data for identifying transmission quality of the packet-oriented connection to the second communications network.