Patent ID: 7363010

Claim:
A wireless device in a wireless communication system, comprising: a data processor operative to process received data blocks for a plurality of data channels and to provide a status of each received data block, wherein the plurality of data channels are used for a data transmission and are power controlled together; and a controller operative to determine whether each of the plurality of data channels is dormant or not dormant, to adjust a final signal quality (SIR) target for the plurality of data channels based on status of received data blocks for data channels that are not dormant, and to use the final SIR target for power control of the data transmission sent on the plurality of data channels and, for each of the plurality of data channels, to determine an amount of time elapse since activity was last detected on the data channel, to declare the data channel to be dormant if the amount of elapsed time since last activity is greater than or equal to a predetermined time threshold, and to declare the data channel to be not dormant if the amount of elapsed time since last activity is less than the predetermined time threshold.