Systems and methods for controlling the power level for a mobile station during periods when no data is being transmitted by the mobile station. In one embodiment, data is intermittently transmitted from a mobile station to a base station on a reverse-link traffic channel. When data is being transmitted on the traffic channel, the transmitted data is used by the base station to perform power control operations (e.g., incrementing or decrementing the mobile station's power level, based upon comparison of a received SNR to a target SNR). When no data is being transmitted on the traffic channel, a “zero-rate indicator” is transmitted on the rate indicator channel. The zero-rate indicator is used by the base station to perform power control. Power control based on the zero-rate indicator may use velocity profiles, reliability metrics or other techniques to control adjustment of the power level.