with reference to the flowchart in fig4 , the methodology employed at a mobile terminal operating in accordance with an or - of - the - ups rule is shown . at step 401 , a determination is made whether the mobile terminal is in handoff ( i . e ., whether or not the active set is greater than one ). in addition , but not shown , an optional additional determination may be made of whether the mobile terminal &# 39 ; s average path losses to the base stations in its active set differ from each other by more than a predetermined amount . if it is not in handoff , at step 402 , the mobile terminal follows power control commands received from its one serving base station . if it is in handoff ( and if the optional determination of average path losses indicates that such average path losses differ from each other by less than the predetermined amount ), then , at step 403 , the mobile terminal monitors power control commands from the base stations in its active set and accumulates power control commands ( the sequence of + 1 s and − 1 s ) from the serving base station to determine the power targeted by the base station . specifically , by accumulating these + 1 s and − 1 s , the power level at which the serving base station would like the mobile terminal to operate can be determined . at step 404 , a determination is made whether any of the power commands received by any of the base stations in the active set is an “ up ” ( an or - of - the ups rule ). if not , indicating that the received power level at all of that base stations in the active set is at or above the target ( and in turn that the transmission is likely to have been successful at all of the base stations ), then , at step 405 , the mobile terminal decreases its transmit power by a predetermined down - step . if , at step 404 , any of the power commands received from any of the base stations in the active set is an “ up ” ( indicating that transmission in unlikely to have been successful at the base station ( s ) from which the up is received ), then the mobile terminal transmit power may be increased . before increasing its transmit power , however , a determination is made , at step 406 , whether the mobile terminal is already at its maximum transmit power , or whether the mobile terminal transmit power exceeds the power targeted by the serving base station by more than a predetermined amount . if either is the case , then , at step 407 , the mobile terminal reverts to an or - of - the - downs power control rule ( i . e ., the mobile terminal lowers its power if any base station in the active set instructs it to do so ). alternatively , but not shown , the mobile terminal reverts to following power control from only the serving base station . if , at step 406 , the mobile terminal is not at its maximum transmit power and does not exceed the power targeted by the serving base station by the predetermined amount , then , at step 408 , the mobile terminal increases its transmit power by a predetermined up - step . with reference to the flowchart in fig5 , the methodology employed at a mobile terminal operating in accordance with an or - of - the - nacks rule is shown . at step 501 , a determination is made whether the mobile terminal is in handoff . as in the first embodiment , an optional addition determination may be made of whether the mobile terminal &# 39 ; s average path losses to the base stations in its active set differ from each other by more than a predetermined amount . if it is not in handoff , at step 502 , the mobile terminal follows acknowledgment feedback ( acks / nacks ) from its one serving base station . if it is in handoff , ( and if the optional determination of average path losses indicates that such average path losses differ from each other by less than the predetermined amount ), then , at step 503 , at the end of the packet transmission limit ( i . e ., after the mobile terminal has transmitted a data packet its maximum allowed number of times ), the mobile terminal monitors acknowledgments from all base stations in the active set . in addition , the transmit power of the mobile terminal that is required for a successful reception at the serving base station is tracked . at step 504 , a determination is made whether at the end of the packet transmission limit any of the acknowledgments is a nack , indicating an unsuccessful reception ( an or - of - the - nacks determination ) at the base station ( s ) from which the nack ( s ) is received . it should be noted that in certain systems a nack is indicated by base station silence , i . e ., the absence of the base station transmitting an ack . if none of the responses is a nack , then the packet has been successfully received at each of the base stations in the active set and , at step 505 , the mobile terminal power is decreased by a down - step for a next packet transmission . if , however , at step 504 , any of the base station responses is a nack , then the mobile terminal power may be increased . before increasing its transmit power , however , a determination is made , at step 506 , whether the mobile terminal is already at its maximum transmit power , or whether the mobile terminal transmit power exceeds the power targeted by the serving base by more than a predetermined amount . if either is the case , then , at step 507 , the mobile terminal reverts to an or - of - the - acks power control rule for subsequent packet transmissions ( i . e ., the mobile terminal increases its transmit power only if doesn &# 39 ; t receive an ack from at least one base station in its active set ). alternatively , but not shown , the mobile terminal reverts to following power control based on the ack / nack received from only the serving base station . if , at step 506 , the mobile terminal is not at its maximum transmit power and does not exceed the power targeted by the serving base station by the predetermined amount , then , at step 508 , the mobile terminal increases its transmit power by a predetermined up - step . with reference to the flowchart in fig6 , another methodology employed at a mobile terminal operating in accordance with an or - of - the - nacks rule is shown . at step 601 , a determination is made whether the mobile is in handoff . as in the previously discussed embodiments , in addition , but not shown , an additional optional determination may be made of whether the mobile terminal &# 39 ; s average path losses to the base stations in its active set differ from each other by more than a predetermined amount . if it is not in handoff , at step 602 , the mobile terminal follows acknowledgment feedback from its one serving base station . if it is in handoff , ( and if the optional determination of average path losses indicates that such average path losses differ from each other by less than the predetermined amount ), then , at step 603 , the mobile terminal monitors acknowledgments from all the base stations in its active set . at step 604 , a determination is made whether any of the base station responses to a packet transmission is a nack . if not , at step 605 , the mobile terminal prepares to transmit the next data packet . if , however , at step 604 , it does receive a nack from one or more base stations in its active set , the mobile terminal may retransmit the packet . if , at step 606 , the retransmission limit has not been reached for this packet , then , at step 607 , the mobile terminal retransmits the data packet . if , however , at step 606 the retransmission limit has been reached for this packet , then , at step 608 , retransmission for subsequent packets is performed based on an or - of - the - acks rule wherein the packet is not retransmitted if an ack is received from any base station in the active set . alternatively , but not shown , if the retransmission limit has been reached , retransmission for subsequent packets may be based on the ack / nack acknowledgments received only from the serving base station . in each of the embodiments described above , the mobile terminal may perform a test to determine the reliability of the acks or nacks , or power control bits that it receives from the base stations in its active set in order to determine whether or not to raise its transmit power or to retransmit a packet . specifically , the received power of the received acks / nacks or power control bits can be compared against a threshold . in those systems in which acks and nacks are both positively transmitted , then if the power is greater than the threshold , then the received acks / nacks or power control bits can be assumed to be reliable and used to make the appropriate determination of increasing / decreasing the transmit power or retransmitting the packet . on the other hand , if the power is below the threshold , a decision to increase the power or retransmit the packet is made only on the basis of those acks / nacks or power control bits that are deemed to be reliable . for those systems in which a nack is indicated by base station silence a nack would be deemed to be reliable if its power was below a threshold . upon a successful decoding of a mobile station &# 39 ; s data transmission the received signal from the mobile terminal is reconstructed and subtracted off from the composite received signal prior to decoding other mobile terminal &# 39 ; s transmissions with a concomitant improved signal - to - noise ratio for these other mobile terminals &# 39 ; transmissions . for mobile terminals that have adopted the fallback position for power control or ack / nack feedback , the amount of interference presented to the non - serving base stations is likely to be decreased and the penalty due to not being able to successfully decode those transmissions is reduced . as previously discussed , the described methodology can be used in any system where out - of - cell interference limits the signal - to - noise ratio for one or more in - cell mobile terminals . examples of such system include a system employing successive interference cancellation or an ofdma system that allows only one in - cell transmission over a given set of frequency tones . the above - described embodiment is illustrative of the principles of the present invention . those skilled in the art can devise other embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention .