Techniques for compressing data in a wireless network are provided. Data may be in the form of data packets that have one or more headers and a payload. One or more compression initiation criteria are used to determine whether to compress all data or certain data. Different data may be associated with different classes of service. Compression initiation criteria for data that belongs to one class of service may be different than compression initiation criteria for data that belongs to another class of service. Compression initiation criteria for data may be different than one or more compression halting criteria that are used to determine whether to cease compressing data. One type of compression involves use of synchronized history buffers. A wireless receiver may communicate with a wireless transmitter that an error is detected and that the history buffers of the wireless transmitter should be flushed or cleared.