A multi-tone transceiver including: a channel controller and a plurality of components forming a transmit path and a receive path. The channel controller configured to determine bit-loading for each successive symbol or tone set based on a 1st noise margin target for a first subset of tones in each tone set dedicated to transport of a robust communications channel (RCC) and based on a 2nd noise margin target less than the 1st noise margin target for remaining tones in each tone set dedicated to a standard communications channel (SCC). The plurality of components forming the transmit and receive paths are responsive to the channel controller to select for data modulated on a given tone at least one of smaller constellations and higher gain scaling levels when the given tone corresponds to an RCC tone as compared to an SCC tone, whereby the first set of tones dedicated to the RCC exhibit greater immunity to noise variations than the remaining tones dedicated to the SCC.