Patent ID: 6947483

Claim:
A method comprising: informing one or more mobile units within a wireless network that a first access point is capable of handling data compression; informing the first access point that a first mobile unit is capable of handling compression; optionally compressing data at the first mobile unit prior to transmitting the data to the first access point, by deciding whether to compress the data based upon at least one factor selected from the group consisting of a first factor indicating whether the first access point is capable of handling data compression, a second factor indicating whether the first mobile unit can perform data compression according to one or more specific compression schemes that are supported by the first access point, a third factor indicating whether the size of data to be transmitted exceeds a first threshold level, a fourth factor indicating how much data is waiting in a queue to be transmitted, a fifth factor indicating a relative position of the data to be compressed with respect to other data in the queue that is waiting to be transmitted, a sixth factor indicating whether the type of the data to be compressed is suitable for data compression, a seventh factor indicating whether previous compression gain exceeds a second threshold level, and an eighth factor indicating a relative computational power of the first mobile unit to be used for data compression tasks; and optionally compressing data at the first access point prior to transmitting the data to the first mobile unit.