In a semiconductor lasers using quantum well gain medium, a quantum well stack is mounted in an epi-down configuration. The methods and apparatus time shift first data in a first portion of the compressed data bitstream to increase a size of a second portion of the compressed data bitstream and insert second data in the second portion of the compressed data bitstream to form a modified compressed data bitstream. The bridge may then either i) propagate the join messages, in response to the gateway port being in a forwarding state according to the STP, on other forwarding ports of the bridge, or ii) in response to the gateway port not being in a forwarding state, block propagation of the join messages to other ports of the bridge.