In this article we present a survey of the power control techniques for modern wireless DS-CDMA communication systems. Power control is the single most important system requirement for DS-CDMA systems. Well-defined power control is essential for proper functioning of the DS-CDMA system. In the absence of power control the effect of near⁄far phenomena is dominant, and the capacity of the DS-CDMA mobile system is very low, even lower than that of mobile systems based on FDMA. However, when the power control in DS-CDMA systems exists, it allows users to share resources of the system equally between themselves. Also, with a proper power control it is possible to lower total transmitting power of the mobiles and prolong the battery life.