A cellular wireless communication system includes base transceiver stations and mobile stations that operate with a closed loop power control. The mobile tracking is performed based on the lock in and lock out thresholds by the base transceiver stations. A forward link power control bit is decoded from the reverse channel. An additional threshold is introduced for determining at the base transceiver station whether the decoded forward link power control bit is valid or invalid. The finger energies obtained from a finger processor formed by a RAKE receiver of the base transceiver station are compared to the additional validation threshold. The additional validation threshold is independent of the tracking thresholds and usually greater than them. The validation performance may not be affected by low signal/noise. The forward link traffic channel gain of the base transceiver station is controlled in response to the invalidity of the decoded forward power control bit. The decoding of the reverse link power control bit and the validity determination of the decoded reverse link power control bit are performed by similar methods to those of the forward link power control bit. With improved validation methods, the forward link and reverse link transmission power is more accurately controlled.