> And software ?

<...>

> > Check out the specs for the router/connection hardware.

Why? Hardware compression is usually adequate.

You may want to look at the link to the encryption proxy posted by
Andreas. Most (decent) encryption perform compression before
encryption (to reduce the amount of data to be encrypted and because
encrypted data cannot usually be compressed).

If you go down the path of using an encrypted link, my advice would be
to go for something more generic - IPSec or whatever. If you are
going to go to this bother, you may as well have the benefit for the
entire network.

All IMHO of course :-)

Geoff Worboys
Telesis Computing