Patent ID: 7894724

Claim:
A method for low error rate polarization multiplexed optical communications transmission comprising: a) receiving a plurality of incoming data streams, each incoming data stream having corresponding data symbols; b) interleaving the data symbols of each incoming data stream onto a plurality of outgoing data streams; and, c) generating at least one polarization multiplexed optical signal from the plurality of outgoing data streams for optical transmission; wherein the step of interleaving includes the steps of: i) receiving the plurality of incoming data streams in parallel; ii) buffering a predetermined number of data symbols corresponding to each of the plurality of incoming data streams; iii) distributing each of the predetermined number of data symbols corresponding to one incoming data stream onto the different outgoing data streams; and, iv) repeating step iii) for the remaining incoming data streams; and wherein the incoming data streams include multi-dimensional FEC codes having two or more constituent codewords, and the step of receiving includes receiving the two or more constituent codewords for an incoming data stream, and the step of distributing includes transmitting approximately 1/n×100% of each constituent codeword to each of n outgoing data streams, where n is an integer number greater than 1.