Patent ID: 8798457

Claim:
A transceiver module comprising: a transmitter configured to transmit a first command, including a data packet command instructing a receiving transceiver to respond with a packet which corresponds to an acknowledge message; a receiver configured to receive responses from the receiving transceiver; a memory and a processor configured to record on the memory an indicator that the transceiver module is in a point-to-point network upon the receiver receiving a response corresponding to the first command from the receiving transceiver; the transmitter further configured to transmit one or more subsequent commands upon the receiver failing to receive the response corresponding to the first command from the receiving transceiver, wherein each of the one or more subsequent commands includes instructions to the receiving transceiver to retransmit the acknowledge message; the processor further configured to record on the memory an indicator that the transceiver module is in a ring network upon the receiver receiving a response corresponding to the one or more subsequent commands from the receiving transceiver, the response corresponding to the one or more subsequent commands including wrappers generated by a plurality of transceiver modules of the ring network; and the processor further configured to record on the memory recording an indicator that the transceiver module is not in a point-to-point network or a ring network upon the receiver failing to receive the response corresponding to the first command from the receiving transceiver and the receiver failing to receive a response corresponding to the one or more subsequent commands from the receiving transceiver.