An apparatus comprising a decorrelator, a compressive sampler coupled to the decorrelator, and an encoder coupled to the compressive sampler, wherein the compressive sampler is configured to receive sparse data and compress the sparse data using compressive sampling. Also included is a network component comprising at least one processor configured to implement a method comprising decorrelating sparse data or data including sparse data, compressing the sparse data using compressive sampling, and encoding the data. Also included is a method comprising receiving a data stream comprising a sparse data portion, compressing the sparse data portion using compressive sampling, and compressing the remaining data portion without using compressive sampling.