Patent ID: 8111993

Claim:
A method of communicating digital information over an optical channel comprising one or more spans of single-mode optical fiber, the method comprising: prior to transmission of the digital information, configuring an equalizer with a frequency-dependent phase adjustment corresponding with at least one of chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion experienced by an optical signal transmitted over the optical channel; processing input digital information bits to generate a corresponding electrical orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) signal comprising in phase and quadrature signal components, wherein the information bits are encoded in at least one block comprising a plurality of data symbols corresponding with frequency components of the electrical OFDM signal; modulating an optical source with the in-phase and quadrature signal components of the electrical OFDM signal to produce a corresponding optical OFDM signal; transmitting the optical OFDM signal over the optical channel; detecting the optical OFDM signal to produce corresponding received in phase and quadrature signal components of the optical OFDM signal; processing the received in-phase and quadrature signal components to recover the frequency components comprising the at least one block of the electrical OFDM signal; and the equalizer applying the configured frequency-dependent phase adjustment to equalize each frequency component in order to recover the transmitted data symbols and encoded information bits.