For setting up a traffic channel connection between an originating mobile station and a destination mobile station of a mobile radiotelephone network, the network having at least two base stations, a base station control unit that controls these, and a mobile switching center connected with this control unit via a transcoding and rate adaption unit, a connection request is signaled from an originating mobile station requesting connection to a destination mobile station via the mobile switching center. Using a database, the mobile switching center determines via which base station the desired destination mobile station can be reached. The transcoding and rate adaption unit contains a switching stage for the traffic channel connection setup, which switches a traffic channel connection between the originating mobile station and the destination mobile station.