embodiment s is merely exemplary in nature and is in no way intended to limit the invention its application or uses for purposes of clarity the same reference numbers will be used in the drawings to identify similar elements as used herein the term module and or device refers to an application specific integrated circuit asic an electronic circuit a processor shared dedicated or group and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs a combinational logic circuit and or other suitable components that provide the described functionality a dual media network interface according to the present invention automatically disables interfaces associated with inactive media when a link is established at another interface the dual media network interface prevents independent physical layer devices associated with small form factor pluggable sfp modules from establishing or maintaining links with external devices after another interface previously establishes a link referring now to fig2 an exemplary network device 32 includes a dual media network interface 34 having a medium access control mac device 36 that communicates with a physical layer device 38 or phy the dual media network interface 34 includes an sfp interface 40 and a copper interface 42 the sfp interface 40 communicates with the physical layer device 38 through a serial gigabit medium independent interface sgmii or another interface such as a 4 byte 5 byte 4b 5b local fiber interface or a serializer deserializer serdes interface in an exemplary embodiment the sfp interface.