Patent ID: 7076265

Claim:
In a mobile communication system, a power reduction method for coupling a base station to a mobile unit, the power reduction method comprising the steps of: detecting consecutive frame erasures (FERs)on a link coupling the base station to the mobile unit, wherein if a consecutive frame erasure is detected, there is further included a step of incrementing a consecutive frame erasure counter; determining whether the base station is in a soft handoff condition with the mobile unit; and when N consecutive frame erasures (FERs) have been detected, clamping a power of transmission on the link to a particular level; and determining whether the consecutive frame erasure counter is equal to an allowable consecutive frame erasure (N), wherein if the consecutive frame erasure counter equals the allowable consecutive frame erasure (N), then there is further included steps of: resetting a consecutive good frames counter; setting a gain ratio to a clamped gain ratio; and ignoring by the base station power control bits transmitted by the mobile unit.