Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate adjusting power spectrum density (PSD) for wireless devices according to multiple possible step sizes. A step size for an adjustment can be selected based at least in part on a received overload indicator from one or more access points, a PSD required to achieve a target signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) for a wireless device, and a PSD previously assigned to the wireless device. Once the step size is selected, it can be applied to the previous PSD to generate a new PSD for the wireless device, and the wireless device can accordingly adjust PSD to mitigate inter-cell interference with the one or more access points.