Patent ID: 6987737

Claim:
A method of providing a link quality indicator signal for a communication system, the communication system having a local transceiver including a plurality of communication status signals, the method comprising: (a) generating a link quality indicator signal at a first signal level; (b) generating the link quality indicator signal at a second signal level if an auto-negotiation complete status signal indicates a local transceiver auto-negotiation process is complete; (c) continuing from step (a) if the auto-negotiation complete status signal indicates the local transceiver auto-negotiation process is not complete; (d) continuing from step (b) if a link status signal indicates that a network channel has not been established; (e) generating the link quality indicator signal at the first signal level and continuing from step d if a local receiver status signal indicates that the local transceiver is not functional; (f) generating the link quality indicator signal at the second signal level if the local receiver stains signal indicates that the local transceiver is functional; (g) generating the link quality indicator signal at the first signal level for a first period of time and generating a link quality indicator signal at the second signal level for the first period of time if a receive error status signal indicates that the local transceiver has a reception error; (h) generating the link quality indicator signal at the first signal level for a first period of time and generating the link quality indicator signal at the second signal level for the first period of time if a receive error status signal indicates that the local transceiver has a reception error; and (i) generating the link quality indicator signal at the first signal level for a second period of time and generating the link quality indicator signal at the second signal level for the second period of time if a MSE status signal indicates that a MSE of the local transceiver exceeds a SNR threshold status signal.