Patent ID: 7823026

Claim:
A method for providing redundancy to a port of a wired data telecommunications network, the method comprising: coupling a first interface of a first port of a redundancy selection device to a first port of a first data telecommunications device; coupling a second interface of the first port of the redundancy selection device to a first port of a second data telecommunications device; except for the portions of signals unique to the first data telecommunications device and the second data telecommunications device, providing identical data signals to the first port of the first data telecommunications device and to the first port of the second data telecommunications device at substantially the same time; coupling data and/or power received over the first interface of the first port of the redundancy selection device to provide data and/or power to a third interface of the first port of the redundancy selection device; detecting a failure in the flow of data and/or power from the first data telecommunications device; and activating the redundancy selection device in response to said detecting to subsequently use data and/or power received over the second interface of the first port of the redundancy selection device to provide data and/or power from the second data telecommunications device to the third interface.