Communications device and method of communications

A communications device comprising:

• a controller configured to:
• determine a half-duplex communications mode for a communications device for a first period;
• and determine a half-duplex communications mode for a communications device for a first period;
• in response to determining the half-duplex communications mode for the communications device:
• disable an echo canceller of the communications device;
• and
• determine a time-division multiplex (TDM) communications schedule over a point-to-point communications link, wherein the TDM communications schedule specifies a plurality of non-overlapping transmission time slots for different communications devices and a silent period for echo fade-out between consecutive transmission time slots of the non-overlapping transmission time slots;
• and
• in response to determining the full-duplex communications mode for the communications device, enable the echo canceller of the communications device;
• and
• a transceiver configured to:
• in response to disabling the echo canceller and determining the TDM communications schedule over the point-to-point communications link, conduct data transmission over the point-to-point communications link according to the TDM communications schedule without echo cancellation during the first time period;
• and
• in response to enabling the echo canceller, conduct simultaneous bidirectional transmission over the point-to-point communications link with echo cancellation during the second time period.

A wired communications network comprising:

• a wired transmission media;
• and
• a plurality of communications devices configured to communicate via the wired transmission media, wherein each of the communications devices comprises:
• a controller configured to:
• determine, for a first time period, a half-duplex communications mode for a communications device and determine, for a second time period, a full-duplex communications mode for the communications device;
• in response to determining the half-duplex communications mode for the communications device for the first time period:
• determine a time-division multiplex (TDM) communications schedule over a point-to-point communications link for the first time period, wherein the TDM communications schedule specifies a plurality of non-overlapping transmission time slots for different communications devices and a silent period for echo fade-out between consecutive transmission time slots of the non-overlapping transmission time slots;
• and
• disable an echo canceller of the communications device during the first timer period;
• and
• in response to determining the full-duplex communications mode for the communications device for the second time period, enable the echo canceler of the communications device;
• a transceiver configured to:
• in response to disabling the echo canceller and determining the TDM communications schedule over the point-to-point communications link, conduct data transmission over the point-to-point communications link according to the TDM communications schedule without echo cancellation during the first time period;
• and
• in response to enabling the echo canceller, conduct simultaneous bidirectional transmission over the point-to-point communications link with echo cancellation at the communications device during the second time period.