An apparatus for detecting forward and reverse link imbalances in a digital cellular communication system is provided. An indication of maximum access probes is used to determine whether a link imbalance caused a reverse link failure to occur. The maximum access probes condition indicates that a wireless unit has attempted to access a base station a pre-defined maximum number of times. An indication of a lost paging channel and a traffic channel initialization (TCI) time out is used to determine whether a link imbalance caused a forward link failure to occur. If the wireless unit did not lose the paging channel, the apparatus determines whether a TCI time out occurred. If the wireless unit lost the paging channel, or it did not lose the paging channel but a TCI time out occurred, the apparatus determines the cause for the forward link failure.