In accordance with a non-limiting example of the present invention, a communications system includes a plurality of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) mesh networks, each comprising a plurality of wireless nodes, each having a transmitter and receiver that communicate on a primary and at least one secondary frequency, and communicate using a TDMA epoch that is divided into at least a beacon interval using the primary frequency and a digital data interval using both the primary and secondary frequencies. The wireless nodes are operative for allocating a secondary frequency usage of a digital data interval for a TDMA mesh network to fall into an unused portion of the secondary frequency usage of another TDMA mesh network.