Question about support for HTTP(S) GZIP compression with Biztalk 2004

Hello,
 
We have a situation were HTTPS 1.1/ SOAP based message exchanges takes place between multiple external parties over public infrastructure. The payload is XML and the amounts of data are very large.
 
Can you tell me if GZIP is a good solution for this and is supported by the SAP PI and its web application server?
 
Best regards,
 
Peter Baard
 
P.s. Looks like everyone is avoiding the large file handling discussing with web services in B2B space 😉