Patent ID: 8107988

Claim:
A method of providing service to mobile stations on a carrier in a wireless coverage area, the method comprising: periodically calculating a reverse noise rise (RNR); periodically calculating a collective reverse-link frame error rate (RFER) for the mobile stations; periodically checking whether a new call-origination message has been received; (a) if a new call-origination message has not been received: (i) checking whether the calculated RNR is less than an RNR threshold, (ii) if the calculated RNR is less than the RNR threshold, sending one or more power-up commands to each of the mobile stations, wherein a power-up command instructs a mobile station to incrementally increase reverse-link transmission power, and (iii) if the calculated RNR is not less than the RNR threshold, sending one or more power-down commands to each of the mobile stations so long as the collective RFER is less than a maximum RFER, wherein a power-down command instructs a mobile station to incrementally decrease reverse-link transmission power; and (b) if a new call-origination message has been received, sending a series of one or more power-down commands to each of the mobile stations until the collective RFER reaches the maximum RFER.