Techniques presented herein allow a wireless device, (e.g., a mobile station, MS) to automatically enter a low power state when detecting silence based on monitored VoIP transmissions. Automatically entering the low power state may help the wireless device conserve power. In addition, for certain types of scheduling services in which bandwidth is allocated to the wireless device from within a system (e.g., Unsolicited Grant Service or extended real time polling service), automatically entering the low power state when silence is detected may also free up bandwidth (i.e., that would have otherwise been allocated to the wireless device entering the low power state) for allocation to other wireless devices in the system.