Patent ID: 8072915

Claim:
A base station that supports communications with a plurality of subscriber units in a CDMA wireless communication system, the base station comprising: an antenna; a radio frequency interface coupled to the antenna; a spreader/despreader coupled to the radio frequency interface; a coder/decoder coupled to the spreader/despreader; processing circuitry coupled to the coder/decoder; memory coupled to the processing circuitry; a base station controller interface coupled to the processing circuitry; and the base station supporting a power control signal including: a first power control/inhibit bit stream that corresponds to a first reverse link common channel; a second power control/inhibit bit stream that corresponds to a second reverse link common channel, the second power control/inhibit bit stream offset in relation to the first power control/inhibit bit stream by a fixed offset; a third power control/inhibit bit stream that corresponds to a third reverse link common channel, wherein the third power control/inhibit bit stream is offset from the first power control/inhibit bit stream by another fixed offset; and a fourth power control/inhibit bit stream that corresponds to a fourth reverse link common channel, wherein the fourth control/inhibit bit stream is offset from the first power control/inhibit bit by yet another fixed offset.