Optical transceiver with variable data rate and sensitivity control

An optical communications system, comprising:

• a modulator/demodulator (modem) to transmit outgoing communications data and to receive incoming communications data in a transceiver;
• a main detector coupled to the modem to convert an optical signal representing the incoming communications data to an electrical signal for the modem;
• and
• an adaptive data rate processor to monitor the electrical signal from the main detector to determine a current power level of the optical signal, wherein the adaptive data rate processor dynamically adjusts a data rate of the modem based on the determined current power level of the optical signal and based on an estimated bit error rate (BER).

An optical communications system, comprising:

• a modulator/demodulator (modem) to transmit outgoing communications data and to receive incoming communications data in a transceiver;
• a main detector coupled to the modem to convert an optical signal representing the incoming communications data to an electrical signal for the modem;
• and
• an adaptive data rate processor to monitor the electrical signal from the main detector to determine a current power level of the optical signal, wherein the adaptive data rate processor dynamically adjusts a data rate of the modem based on the determined current power level of the optical signal, and wherein the adaptive data rate processor dynamically adjusts the data rate independently between a header portion and a data portion of a data packet.

An optical communications system, comprising:

• a modulator/demodulator (modem) to transmit outgoing communications data and to receive incoming communications data in a transceiver;
• a main detector coupled to the modem to convert an optical signal representing the incoming communications data to an electrical signal for the modem;
• and
• an adaptive data rate processor to monitor the electrical signal from the main detector to determine a current power level of the optical signal, wherein the adaptive data rate processor dynamically adjusts a data rate of the modem based on the determined current power level of the optical signal, and wherein the adaptive data rate processor dynamically adjusts the data rate independently for transmitted data packets while receiving data packets with different information rates from the transmitted data packets.