1. A system for connecting a node of an enterprise network to a wireless network so that standard, enterprise-network-specific protocols that are transmission-medium independent can be used to communicate with a wireless node over the wireless network, comprising: a standard, transmission-medium-independent protocol stack that generates data packets to send to other nodes, the other nodes including the wireless node, and that processes data packets received from the other nodes, each data packet having a header with a plurality of header fields, the stack thereby providing communication services to application programs in accordance with the enterprise-network-specific protocols; an enterprise network interface apparatus which is connected to the node of the enterprise network, for transmitting and receiving data packets to and from the enterprise network in accordance with a transmission-medium-specific protocol; an optimization layer that receives data packets from the standard protocol stack that are addressed to the wireless network, and which reduces unnecessary data flow over the wireless network by (a) discarding data packets that have predetermined header values; and (b) discarding unnecessary header fields within non-discarded data packets to thereby generate optimized data packets; and a wireless network interface apparatus for forwarding the optimized data packets to the wireless network in accordance with a wireless network access protocol, the wireless network access protocol being suitable for radio-frequency transmissions of data packets over the wireless network, and being different from the transmission-medium-specific protocol used by the enterprise network.