A system and method for using an alternative wire pair for communication on initial wire pair failure. Upon detection of a failure in a wire pair, an alternative set of one or more wire pairs can be used to support the Ethernet communication. In one embodiment, the alternative wire pairs are kept in a hot standby mode to enable almost instantaneous switching. In another embodiment, an enhanced autonegotiation process is used to automatically identify the alternative set of wire pairs that can support the Ethernet communication.