Numerous techniques exist to vary the power of a transmitter or transceiver operating within a communication system. For example, it is known that battery powered transceivers (subscriber units) may be instructed by a base unit (or repeater) to increase or decrease their transmitter power. Accordingly, upon receipt of an appropriate command code, the battery powered transceiver adjusts its transmitter power (up or down) by a predetermined amount. In this way, the operational life of the battery power subscriber units may be increased by permitting transmissions at reduced power when the battery powered subscriber units are near the base unit (or repeater).
In many situations, however, the major share of communication activity takes place directly between subscriber units (i.e., subscriber-to-subscriber), and not subscriber-to-base. Thus, the energy saving advantage is lost at a time when it is most critical to insure maximized operational transceiver life.