The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for controlling transmission power of a wireless unit. The method includes providing a power control in a reverse link to a network that transmits data on a traffic channel in a bursty manner based on a performance metric of a channel with continuous transmission of other data than on the traffic channel. To provide a power control in a reverse link of a spread-spectrum wireless data network a method and an apparatus are provided for combining performance of a quality of service from at least one of a first quality feedback channel and a second quality feedback channel with that of a pilot channel and providing an outer-loop power control in said reverse link for a wireless communication on a traffic channel based on said combined performance of the quality of service to control transmission power of a wireless unit. A quality of service metric may be associated with one or more channels of the reverse link to determine performance of such a channel when transmission of data on a traffic channel is bursty in nature. Using a performance metric, such as a quality of service metric of a pilot channel, a power control in the reverse link may be provided when data is not transmitted on the traffic channel, e.g., in a bursty traffic channel to control transmission power of a wireless unit. In this manner, the transmission power of the wireless unit may be controlled based on an outer-loop power control that provides a continuous control for a non-continuous transmission.