Systems and methodologies of reducing overhead by designating various fields in an optimized Radio Link Control header. Depending on communication type (e.g., VoIP, non-VoIP) such fields include a combination of a Segment Indicator (SI--which indicates presence of a whole SDU at beginning or at an ending), a Sequence Number (SN), a Length Indicator (LI--which indicates length of a service data unit); a length for the length indicator (LLI--to enable a variable size for the LI and notify a receiver regarding such varying size); a Segment Offset (SO--to designate resegmented packets for lost protocol data units); a length indicator for the SO (LSO--to enable a variable size for the SO); and Last Segment Flag (LSF--for resegmentation of RLC protocol data units).