The present invention relates to cellular mobile radio systems, and more especially it relates to Code Division Multiple Access, CDMA, cellular mobile radio systems, particularly to transmission power control in such systems. A method and apparatus transmitting TPC bits with inherent out-of-sync information and transmission power differential determined on the basis of soft handover status information and out-of-sync status information is disclosed. An associated method and apparatus receiving the TPC bits and controlling transmission power accordingly is presented.