The present invention pertains to improved communication quality in cellular communication networks (10) and the like. A customer has the option to pay different amounts for different tiers of service relating to voice quality and bandwidth access (S102). Higher service tiers may guarantee that a specific vocoder or bit rate is used. Different tiers may be associated with customers' records (208) for billing purposes. The network (200) may also afford high end cellular phones higher voice quality by comparing a given high end phone to a look up table (FIG. 6) which indicates what level of service is associated with the given phone. A calling mobile station (312) or a receiving mobile station (302) may case the other mobile station to change to a more robust vocoder (410) or bit rate (S508) to ensure a higher quality phone call. Furthermore, the user may also opt to change the quality level before or during a call.