1. A method in a mobile station (MS) for reducing latency in a communications channel, the method comprising: accessing, by the MS, a base station subsystem (BSS); indicating, by the MS to the BSS, the support thereof for a reduced time transmission interval (RTTI); and, receiving, by the MS, an Immediate Assignment message sent by the BSS, wherein the Immediate Assignment message allocates to the MS more than one time slot (TS) on an uplink of the communications channel and one or more time slots on a downlink of the communications channel.