Method and apparatus for preferred roaming list compression

Techniques for efficient storage and retrieval of Preferred Roaming Lists are disclosed. In one aspect, PRL entries are stored in two tables. One table contains records that are common to two or more PRL entries. Another table stores any information that is unique to a PRL entry, as well as an indicator of which common record is associated with it. The common record is concatenated with the unique information to generate the uncompressed PRL entry. Various other aspects of the invention are also presented. These aspects have the benefit of reducing the memory requirements for storing a PRL. In addition, time required to download the compressed PRL is reduced.