Apparatus and method for controlling reverse link interference among access terminals in wireless communications

A method of directing access terminals that are power controlled by a sector of a base station to change data rates in reverse link communications from the access terminals to the base station, the method comprising:

• determining an effective noise power spectral density (Nt,i,effective) at an access network for one of the access terminals (i) due to a thermal noise power spectral density (N0) and a sum of chip energy of (Ec) of all channels except pilot channels of at least some of the access terminals that are power controlled by the sector;
• determining a maximum effective noise power spectral density (Nt,max,effective) among the access terminals;
• and
• determining a reverse activity bit (RAB) to signal all of the access terminals that are power controlled by the sector to change the data rates based upon the maximum effective noise power spectral density.