Methods and apparatus for transferring data along a link with a 10GBASE-T transceiver at a variable data rate are disclosed. One exemplary method includes detecting a link quality metric; and selecting a symbol transmission rate and a data modulation scheme based on the detected link quality metric. In many implementations, for a selected symbol transmission rate, if the detected link quality metric is less than a link quality threshold, then the selecting of the data modulation scheme is performed such that a data bit per symbol value represented by the selected data modulation scheme is decreased by at least ½ data bit per symbol. The selected symbol transmission rate and the selected modulation together represent a selectable data rate from a selection of data rates.