A multi-rate transmission system (10) includes a receive section (12) and a transmit section (14). The receive section includes a receiver (16), a clock recovery unit (18), and a serial to parallel converter (20) all operating at a first clock rate (M). The receiver (16) also has a frame recovery unit (22) that operates at any of a plurality of clock rates, including the first clock rate (M) and a second clock rate (M/n). When the frame recovery unit operates at the first clock rate (M), frame information received by the receiver section (12) has unique bits occupying each bit position associated with each clock pulse of the first clock rate (M). When the frame recovery unit (22) operates at the second clock rate (M/n), each unique bit of the frame information occupies a number of bit positions according to a ratio of the first clock rate (M) to the second clock rate (M/n). Similar operation occurs with respect to a frame formatter (30) in the transmit section (14) of the multi-rate transmission system (10).