Patent ID: 8000278

Claim:
A system comprising: a circuit board comprising: a circuit card slot; a circuit card coupled to the slot, the circuit card comprising: circuitry coupled to transmit from the circuit card, in response to a determination that an idle condition with respect to network communication exists, one or more packets to indicate that a transmitter at a remote node is to refrain from transmitting, during one or more predetermined time intervals, to a receiver at the circuit card, wherein the one or more predetermined time intervals are predetermined prior to transmitting the one or more packets from the network interface to the remote node, de-activate the receiver at the circuit card during the one or more predetermined time intervals and detect receipt of one or more packets at the receiver during the idle condition, wherein a receipt of a packet having a first number of symbol levels indicates that the idle condition is to continue and receipt of a packet having a second number of symbol levels indicates that the idle condition has terminated.