Methods and apparatus for transmitting data over a multi-channel CDMA system are disclosed in accordance with the teachings of the present invention wherein the system includes an encoder for encoding a data stream with error correction, an interleaver for interleaving the data stream, a multiplexor for multiplexing a plurality of power control symbols onto the data stream, and an inverse-multiplexor for inverse-multiplexing the data stream onto multiple different communication channels. The system may also include additional error correction encoding and interleaving steps.