A DMT signal conforming to a first DMT standard (e.g., the full-rate G.dmt standard based on 255 tones) is sampled at a sampling rate for the first DMT standard, filtered to attenuate a subset of the tones of the first DMT standard (e.g., all G.dmt tones above tone #127), and subsampled (e.g., 2:1) to provide a subsampled, filtered signal that can be further processed using components designed to operate under a second, different DMT standard (e.g., the half-rate G.lite standard based on 127 tones). As such, a conventional half-rate G.lite DMT transceiver can be modified (e.g., by changing the downstream sampling rate from 1.104 MHz to 2.208 MHz and adding an appropriate low-pass filter and decimator) for configuration in a full-rate G.dmt DMT system. The filtering and subsampling ensure that a downstream signal (even if it is a full-rate DMT initialization or synchronization signal containing tones above tone #127) can successfully be further processed using conventional half-rate DMT transceiver components, which are less complex and less expensive than those of full-rate DMT transceivers, thereby enabling the use of relatively inexpensive consumer personal equipment (CPE) in existing distributed full-rate DMT telecommunications systems.