Patent ID: 7372899

Claim:
In an asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) system comprising a central office High Speed ADSL Terminating Unit (HSTU-C) in bi-directional discrete multitone (DMT) communication with a remote High Speed ADSL Terminating Unit (HSTU-R), a method for improving handshake detection comprising: transmitting handshake signaling from the HSTU-C to the HSTU-R via a first subset of carrier sets at a first symbol rate; and transmitting handshake signaling from the HSTU-C to the HSTU-R via a second subset of carrier sets at a second symbol rate, the second symbol rate being less than the first symbol rate, wherein the handshake signaling is transmitted via the second subset of carrier sets at the second symbol rate after a handshake attempt between the HSTU-C and the HSTU-R performed at the first symbol rate for both the first and second subsets of carrier sets has failed.