A media independent interface and circuitry of a forward error correction (FEC) sublayer are provided, the circuitry of the FEC sublayer to perform forward error correction, the FEC sublayer coupled to a physical coding sublayer and a physical medium attachment (PMA) sublayer. The FEC sublayer include an encoder having a reverse gearbox, a compressor coupled to said reverse gearbox, a selector coupled to said compressor, a parity generator coupled to said compressor, a multiplexer coupled to said compressor, selector and said parity generator, a scrambler coupled to said multiplexer, and a pseudo-noise generator coupled to said scrambler.