A method and apparatus for transceiving multiple service data from multiple communication services to a SONET/SDH communication system or network is provided. A SONET/SDH universal framer (SURF) bidirectionally provides communication between a SONET/SDH communication port and multiple service communication ports using their native data format. A provisioning register stores provisioning information describing the communication system and the communication ports. A SONET/SDH byte engine processes complex hierarchical SONET/SDH frames storing intermediate states when it changes to process a byte of data of a different STS-1 equivalent frame in a SONET/SDH STS-N frame. A service byte engine processes the multitude of service data formats and generally its intermediate states are restored, processed, and saved when it changes to process a different data stream or a different frame of data of a given service. An elastic storage means allows the SONET/SDH byte engine and the service byte engine to operate independent of one another in an asynchronous mode.