A method and apparatus provides OFDM signal compression for transfer over serial data links in a base transceiver system (BTS) of a wireless communication network. For the uplink, an RF unit of the BTS applies OFDM cyclic prefix removal and OFDM frequency transformation of the baseband signal samples followed by frequency domain compression of the baseband signal samples, resulting from analog to digital conversion of received analog signals followed by digital downconversion, forming compressed coefficients. After transfer over the serial data link, the baseband processor applies frequency domain decompression to the compressed coefficients prior to further signal processing. For the downlink, the RF unit performs frequency domain decompression of the compressed coefficients and applies OFDM inverse frequency transformation of the decompressed coefficients and OFDM cyclic prefix insertion prior to digital upconversion and digital to analog conversion, generating the analog signal for transmission over the antenna.