Linear prediction and entropy coding are widely used in speech, audio, video, and other coding systems. Rate-distortion optimization (RDO) is another relevant coding technique, which is especially useful when the encoder performance depends on tunable parameters from distinct coding subsystems. This work presents a RDO strategy for variable-rate encoders that use linear prediction and entropy coding. The method is suitable when the signal to be compressed is short-term stationary and the prediction order varies over signal segments. The second contribution of this paper is to customize the method to the compression of time-domain OFDM-based cellular radio signals. The method enables a 4G / 5G packet-based fronthaul to flexibly trade-off rate and distortion depending on the amount of information to be transmitted and, consequently, benefit from multiplexing gain. Simulation results with LTE signals show that the proposed method achieves improved performance with a relatively low computational cost, while operating with time-domain signals under different traffic scenarios.