Frames of information are communicated between a base station (28) of a radio access network (RAN) and plural types of wireless terminals (30). Frame handlers of the base station and of certain types of wireless terminals (30-2) process differing portions of the frame according to respective differing multiple access technologies. In differing embodiments and implementations, modulation techniques of the differing multiple access technologies can be apportioned to differing portions of the frame in various manners, such as (for example) to differing subframes of a multi-sub-framed frame or to differing burst fields or sections of an uplink (UL) burst.