Aspects of the invention include determining or choosing any usable media pair from all existing media pairs of a first device. Any channel may be selected from all existing channels and the selected channel is chosen so that it is different from a general channel assignment corresponding to the determined usable media pair. The selected channel may be assigned to the media pair. A second device may be notified of the assigned channel which corresponds to the media pair chosen from all the media pairs. The second device may cross-connect a corresponding equivalent channel and media pair. The first and second device may be adapted to negotiate the assignment of the selected channel to any one of the media pairs. Alternatively, a particular channel and media pair assignment may be selected from a plurality of predetermined channel and media pair assignments and utilized by the first and second device.