Certain aspects for the start-up procedure of transceivers supporting higher data rates over twisted-pair copper cabling are provided for 10 Gbit/sec Ethernet links (10GBASE-T). During a PMA (physical medium attachment) training period of the start-up procedure, long PMA training frames are exchanged periodically between link partners. A significant portion of each PMA training frame consists of known pseudo random sequences simultaneously transmitted over four wire pairs. PMA training frames include an InfoField for exchanging parameters and control information between link partners. For example, the InfoField's payload comprises fields for indicating current transmit power backoff (PBO), next PBO, requested PBO, transition count, control information, and for communicating precoder coefficients. Information in InfoFields is repeated and is not necessary that a link partner decodes every InfoField. For example, by occasionally reading the transition count, a link partner can determine when a change in transmit PBO and/or a state transition is to occur.