Abstract: A frame conveyed across the network is divided into a plurality of segments with an identical number of bits. All of the bits of a segment are received simultaneously, with each segment of the frame being received sequentially. Very often, the number of bits in the entire frame, will not be an integer multiple of the number of bits in the segment. Therefore the bits of the frame can be unevenly divided into the plurality of segments. The present invention detects the number of bits from the frame that are present in each of the segments, or at least the number of bits of the frame present in the last segment. An FCS function is used to create a segment FCS function which operates on all the bits of a segment at one time. The original FCS function is preferably an 8 bit function, which combines a present 8 bit word with the FCS calculated for previous 8 bit word in order to generate a new FCS for the present 8 bit word and all previous 8 bit words.