An overload or congestion condition on an access medium (24) of a communication network (22) is indicated by at least one condition that indicates an amount of access attempts on the access medium (24) corresponds to congestion or overload of a capacity of the access medium (24). Example conditions in disclosed embodiments include an occupancy level of the access medium, an average number of access probes associated with successful access attempts, a relationship between received power and interference, an emergency condition and network configuration or maintenance procedures. In a disclosed example, when congestion or overload occurs, at least one technique is implemented to reduce the congestion or overload for stabilizing the access medium. Disclosed example techniques for this include throttling the number of access attempt by reducing the number of users making access attempts or the frequency of user access attempts. Another example technique includes adjusting at least one access medium parameter that will reduce the access attempt traffic.