Communication devices coupled via a communication link may comprise physical layer devices that may be operable to determine presence of a received signal and to mitigate noise in the signal prior to processing and/or validating the signal. Analog and/or digital signal processing may be utilized to process the signal and/or mitigate noise in the signal. Noise mitigation may comprise near-end crosstalk cancelling and/or echo cancelling and/or may utilize local transmit signal information. Subsequent to noise mitigation, samples of the noise reduced signal may be accumulated and/or an average signal strength and/or average signal power level may be determined. The average signal strength and/or average signal power level may be compared to one or more thresholds which may be configurable and/or programmable.