A wireless communication network (20) includes a power control technique that includes repeating an erasure indicator bit in a transmission from a mobile station (22) to a base station (24, 30, 36). The repeated erasure indicator bit is transmitted on the uplink to each base station. The base station then uses the majority rule of those repeated erasure indicator bits to adjust its transmit power. It results in a desired power control command corresponding to the quality of a downlink between a base station (24, 30, 36) and the mobile station (22). A disclosed example includes using the repeated error indicator bit for deciding whether a recent frame should be considered an erasure. If so, the base station increases power on the downlink forward channel. If not, the base station decreases the transmit power on the downlink forward channel. A disclosed example includes alternative power control adjustment techniques, depending on the recent history of the quality of the downlink.