A multi-tone modem with components forming a transmit path and a receive path configured to couple to a wired communication medium for at least intermittent communication of frequency division multiplexed multi-tone modulated communication channels thereon. A Fourier transform component transforms received communication channels between a time domain and a frequency domain and vice-versa. Selected components on the receive path determine alignments between the received multiplexed communication channels in the time domain using alignment determinations made in both a time domain and frequency domain portions of the receive path. The Fourier transform component transforms a stream of digitized samples of the received multiplexed communication channels from the time to the frequency domain using the alignment determinations made by the selected components on the receive path.