Patent ID: 7693090

Claim:
A communication system, comprising: a plurality of network physical media entities (PMEs) terminating a plurality of links, each of the network PMEs configured to communicate with a respective remote PME via a respective one of the links; memory for storing bonding group data indicating which of the PMEs are in a PME bonding group; and logic configured to communicate control data via at least one control channel over at least one of the links, during a data phase for the at least one link, using Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) encapsulation, the control data indicating whether the at least one of the PMEs is in the PME bonding group, the logic further configured to discover the PME bonding group based on the control data and to update the bonding group data based on the control data, the logic further configured to bond a plurality of PMEs of the PME bonding group based on the updated bonding group data.