As SIP usage becomes prolific in 3G wireless communications, challenges are presented to using the current SIP protocols for real-time communications due to the limited signaling compression offered via SIP become. Signaling introduces unwanted delays on limited bandwidth and increases the call setup time. Additionally, SIP messages are large—from a few hundred bytes to several kilobytes—and compression is not offered on all available fields. The invention provides for compression of the VIA field of SIP messages through several techniques and thereby achieves lower signaling delays that reduce complex call setup delays and reduce the loss of bandwidth to necessary in-call signaling.