In simulations of the 1/spl times/EV-DO forward link, packet detection is frequently modeled in simulations by measuring the average signal-to-noise ratio received during a packet transmission, and comparing this to a pre-determined threshold to decide whether or not the packet was received in error. In this paper we consider an analytical treatment of such a model, and show that in some important cases it is possible to derive closed-form expressions for the forward link throughput and packet error rate (PER). The analytical approach can reveal improved methods for data rate selection by the access terminal, and be used for performance analysis and system optimization as an alternative to simulation.