A wireless communication method and apparatus for controlling the power of signals (105) transmitted by downlink (DL) and/or uplink (UL) coded composite transport channels (CCTrCHs). A base station (110) transmits signals to a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) (115) via at least one UL CCTrCH. The base station (110) determines whether or not discontinuous transmission (DTX) of a UL CCTrCH that controls the power of a DL CCTrCH is employed, and/or the WTRU determines whether or not DTX of a DL CCTrCH that controls the power of a UL CCTrCH is employed. The power of the CCTrCHs is incremented or decremented by a first step size when DTX is employed, and by a second step size when DTX is not employed.