Patent ID: 7657278

Claim:
In a multi-cell wireless communication system including a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) for which transmit power is controlled by a transmit power control (TPC) command, a method for deriving a combined TPC command from a TPC command received from each of at least two cells of the multi-cell wireless communication system during handover, the method comprising: computing and setting a reliability threshold and a combining threshold for TPC; receiving TPC commands from at least two cells of the multi-cell wireless communication system; determining whether a particular one of the received TPC commands indicates a decrease of the transmit power and that a signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) of the particular TPC command is greater than the reliability threshold; and on a condition that the determination is negative: computing a function γ based on the particular received TPC command; comparing the function γ with the combining threshold; setting the combined TPC command for decrease of the transmit power on a condition that the function γ is less than or equal to the combining threshold; and setting the combined TPC command for increase of the transmit power on a condition that the function γ is greater than the combining threshold.