Detecting extended acquisition indicators

1. A method comprising:

receiving, at a wireless communication device on a downlink channel, acquisition indicator (AI) data, the AI data comprising an acquisition indicator (AI), a corresponding AI signature, and a corresponding plurality of extended acquisition indicators (EAI);

performing, by the wireless communication device, a first comparison of a channel power corresponding to the received AI signature to a first threshold and a second comparison of a reliability metric of the extended acquisition indicators to a second threshold; and

declaring, by the wireless communication device, the AI to have a state that is indeterminate, positively acknowledged, or negatively acknowledged based at least on the first comparison and the second comparison, wherein the indeterminate AI state denotes neither acknowledgment nor denial of an access request associated with the received AI data.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

reducing transmit power of a subsequent access request by the wireless communication device in response to the indeterminate AI state.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

if the channel power does exceed the first threshold, computing a default enhanced dedicated channel (E-DCH) resource index.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the indeterminate AI state has a value of zero.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

if the channel power does not exceed the first threshold and the reliability metric does exceed the second threshold, declaring the AI state to be a negative acknowledgement.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

if one of extended acquisition indicators having a highest absolute value is positive, declaring a state of the extended acquisition indicator (EAI) to be a negative acknowledgement.

7. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

if one of extended acquisition indicators having a highest absolute value is negative, declaring a state of the extended acquisition indicator (EAI) to be a positive acknowledgement.

8. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

computing an enhanced dedicated channel (E-DCH) resource index.

9. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

computing an enhanced dedicated channel (E-DCH) resource index based at least in part on a default E-DCH resource index, a total number of E-DCH resources, and a random access preamble signature.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reliability metric of the extended acquisition indicators is based at least in part on a ratio of one of the plurality of extended acquisition indicators to another one of the plurality of extended acquisition indicators.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the ones of plurality of extended acquisition indicators used in the ratio are selected based on absolute value.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the one of the plurality of extended acquisition indicators has a second largest absolute value and the another one of the plurality of extended acquisition indicators has a largest absolute value.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the AI data is received on an acquisition indicator channel (AICH).

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the AI data is received in response to a random access request transmitted by the wireless communication device on an uplink channel.

15. A device comprising:

a wireless transceiver;

power control circuitry configured to control power to the wireless transceiver; and

processing circuitry configured to:

receive acquisition indicator (AI) data via the wireless transceiver, the AI data comprising an acquisition indicator (AI), a corresponding AI signature, and a corresponding plurality of extended acquisition indicators (EAI);

determine whether a channel power corresponding to the received AI signature exceeds a first threshold;

determine whether a reliability metric of the extended acquisition indicators exceeds a second threshold; and

provide a power ramp input to the power control circuitry if the channel power does not exceed the first threshold and the reliability metric does not exceed the second threshold,

wherein the power control circuitry increases transmit power to the wireless transceiver in response to the power ramp input.

16. The device of claim 15 , the processing circuitry further configured to compute the reliability metric based at least in part on a ratio of selected ones of the plurality of extended acquisition indicators, the selection based on absolute value.

17. The device of claim 15 , the processing circuitry further configured to:

compute a first positive limit based on a sum of a plurality of channel powers, each channel power corresponding to one of a plurality of received AI signatures; and

compute the first threshold as a negative of the first positive limit.

18. The device of claim 17 , the processing circuitry further configured to:

scale the first positive limit by a power offset parameter.

19. A method comprising:

transmitting a first random access request to a base station of a cellular wireless communication system;

receiving, at a user element (UE) of the cellular wireless communication system, acquisition indicator (AI) data that comprises an acquisition indicator (AI), a corresponding AI signature, and a corresponding plurality of extended acquisition indicators (EAI);

determining, by the UE, whether a channel power corresponding to the received AI signature exceeds a first threshold;

determining, by the UE, whether a reliability metric of the extended acquisition indicators exceeds a second threshold; and

if the channel power does not exceed the first threshold and the reliability metric does not exceed the second threshold, transmitting a second random access request with increased power relative to the first random access request.

20. The method of claim 19 , further comprising computing the reliability metric based at least in part on a ratio of selected ones of the plurality of extended acquisition indicators, the selection based on absolute value.