The method and apparatus of the present invention provides for reduced power consumption and cost while supporting wide bandwidth signals from a large number of antennas, as is required by next generation systems. In accordance with the present invention, a method and apparatus are provided for processing data in a baseband unit in which compressed signals from remote radio units are sent directly to the switch instead of to a separate conversion device. Thereby, the local input and output bottleneck within processing devices is removed in the data path of the signals between the remote radio units and the baseband unit. This also reduces the number of ports in the switch and bandwidth requirement for the switch.