Method and apparatus for providing link quality feedback to a transmitter (32,34). In one embodiment, a periodic link quality message is transmitted on a gated channel, while continuous differential indicators are transmitted. Between quality messages, the differential indicators track the quality of the link. In one embodiment, a remote station includes a differential analyzer (212) to determine the change in successive channel quality measurements. The quality metric and the differential indicator are used for providing power control commands and rate control commands to teh base station. The quality metric and the differential indicator are transmitted at two different frequencies.