A unit (25, 46) performs a compression operation or a decompression operation with respect to information for transmission in packets over a wireless link (36). The transmission over the wireless link is such that the packets may become reordered from a transmission sequence. The compression operation and the decompression operation involve a tradeoff of robustness and reordering depth. The robustness is an indicator of a degree of information loss over the link tolerated by the compression operation and the decompression operation; the reordering depth is a degree of packet reordering tolerated by the compression operation and the decompression operation. The unit dynamically adjusts the tradeoff of the robustness and the reordering depth in accordance with characteristics of the link. In an example embodiment, the information upon which the compression operation and the decompression operation is performed is sequence number information of a packet header.