A communication system supports H-ARQ, AMC, active set handoff, and scheduling functions in a distributed fashion by allowing a mobile station (MS) to signal control information corresponding to an enhanced reverse link transmission to Active Set base transceiver stations (BTSs) and by allowing the BTSs to perform control functions that were supported by an RNC in the prior art. The communication system allows time and SIR-based H-ARQ flush functions at the BTSs during soft handoff (SHO), provides an efficient control channel structure to support scheduling, H-ARQ, AMC functions for an enhanced reverse link, or uplink, channel in order to maximize throughput, and enables an MS in a SHO region to choose a scheduling assignment corresponding to a best TFRI out of multiple assignments it receives from multiple active set BTS. As a result, the enhanced uplink channel can be scheduled during SHO without any explicit communication between the BTSs.