System and method for downlink signaling for high speed uplink packet access

User equipment for providing high speed uplink packet access to a base station comprising:

• a transmitter configured to transmit data packets to the base station;
• a receiver configured to receive control information from the base station which correspond to the data packets transmitted to the base station, the control information including at least a control channel acknowledgement field in an absolute grant channel assigned to the user equipment, the control information further including a relative grant bit;
• and
• a controller, coupled to the transmitter and receiver, configured to utilize the control channel acknowledgement field in response to one of handoff and entering an active channel state, the controller being further configured to change an attribute used by the user equipment to determine at least one of the uplink transmission rate and power level of the transmitter.

User equipment for providing high speed uplink packet access to a base station comprising:

• a transmitter configured to transmit data packets to the base station;
• a receiver configured to receive control information from the base station which correspond to the data packets transmitted to the base station, the control information including at least a control channel acknowledgement field in an absolute grant channel assigned to the user equipment;
• and
• a controller, coupled to the transmitter and receiver, configured to utilize the control channel acknowledgement field in response to one of handoff and entering an active channel state,
• wherein the control information including the at least a control channel acknowledgement field in an absolute grant channel is indicated by color coding the absolute grant channel with a radio network temporary identifier associated with the user equipment.