Patent ID: 8081625

Claim:
A method comprising: configuring a state of one or more switching elements coupled to an Ethernet over twisted pair device such that said Ethernet over twisted pair device is operable to communicate over a channel which is shared by said Ethernet over twisted pair device and two or more link partners, wherein: said Ethernet over twisted pair device and said two or more link partners are part of a single collision domain on said shared channel; a physical layer transceiver (PHY) of said Ethernet over twisted pair device is to communicate with said two or more link partners utilizing one or more of the 10BASE-T standard, the 100BASE-T standard, the 1GBASE-T standard, and the 10GBASE-T standard; and a MAC controller of said Ethernet over twisted pair device is operable to generate one or more control signals which control said configuring of said state of said one or more switching elements.