Patent ID: 8355404

Claim:
A method for wired communication, the method comprising: in a multi-rate Ethernet physical layer device operable to communicate over a wired communication medium comprising a plurality of twisted-pairs utilizing Ethernet physical layer standards and/or protocols: controlling a transmission rate at which said multi-rate Ethernet physical layer device transmits data over said wired communication medium; controlling a reception rate at which said multi-rate Ethernet physical layer device receives data over said wired communication medium; selecting fewer signal processing operations to be utilized on each twisted-pair of said plurality of twisted-pairs of said wired communication medium by said multi-rate Ethernet physical layer device to receive data than to transmit data over said wired communication medium when said reception rate is lower than said transmission rate; wherein said signal processing operations comprise one or more of an ECHO cancellation operation, a near-end crosstalk (NEXT) cancellation operation, and a far-end crosstalk (FEXT) cancellation operation.