Abstract: To alleviate the requirement to back-off all up-link performance, such as by limiting power spectral density, to overcome far-end cross-talk problems otherwise associated with relatively short loop-length wireline links, the present invention partitions the frequency spectrum based on an estimate of the loop length of a subscriber unit (CPE) modem from an exchange (LTE) modem. Up to a threshold frequency (fmax) at which received transmissions from a subscriber having a longest loop length (115) become indistinguishable by the LTE modem from a noise floor (102), up-link performance on all loop lengths is limited to correspond to that of the longest loop. At frequencies above the threshold frequency (fmax), subsets of subscribers (152-154) having relatively short loop lengths (116-119) use high frequency carriers that have signal to noise ratios sufficient to support information transmission in these elevated frequency bands.