Patent ID: 8725190

Claim:
An access terminal of a wireless communication system, the access terminal comprising: an antenna configured to transmit and receive wireless communications; a transceiver coupled to the antenna; a load level monitor communicatively coupled to the transceiver and configured to receive, at the access terminal from the transceiver via the antenna from a plurality of base transceiver stations (BTSs) in a region of the wireless network containing the access terminal, indications of reverse link wireless network traffic load over a period of time in the region of the wireless network containing the access terminal and to analyze the indications; a load level module communicatively coupled to the load level monitor and configured to combine the indications for each of the plurality of BTSs over the period of time to obtain a filtered indication for each of the plurality of BTSs and to combine the filtered indications to determine an aggregate load level associated with the region of the wireless network containing the access terminal; and a transmission module, communicatively coupled to the load level module and the transceiver, configured to cause the transceiver to change from transmitting data packets in accordance with a first value of a transmission characteristic to transmitting data packets in accordance with a second value of the transmission characteristic in response to the aggregate load level being below a first load threshold value.