Network device and associated methods are provided. The network device includes a plurality of base-ports, each base-port coupled to a plurality of network links and each base-port includes a plurality of sub-ports configured to operate as independent ports for sending and receiving information. Each network link is coupled to a smoothing first in-first out (FIFO) memory module that is used to temporarily store information at a first clock rate and information is read from the smoothing FIFO at a second clock. A sub-port can include one network link or more than one network link for receiving information from another device. A controller module monitors the smoothing FIFO for each network link to insert or delete characters from each of the smoothing FIFO based on a sub-port configuration for maintaining an order in which information is received for the sub-port.