Methods and devices for reducing traffic over a wireless link through the compression or suppression of high layer packets carrying predictable background data prior to transportation over a wireless link. The methods include intercepting application layer protocol packets carrying the predictable background data. In embodiments where the background data is periodic in nature, the high layer packets may be compressed into low-layer signaling indicators for communication over a low-layer control channel (e.g., an on off keying (OOK) channel). Alternatively, the high layer packets may be suppressed entirely (not transported over the wireless link) when a receiver side daemon is configured to autonomously replicate the periodic background nature according to a projected interval. In other embodiments, compression techniques may be used to reduce overhead attributable to non-periodic background data that is predictable in context.