The present invention is directed to communication systems and methods. According to an embodiment, a receiving optical transceiver determines signal quality for signals received from a transmitting optical transceiver. Information related to the signal quality is embedded into back-channel data and sent to the transmitting optical transceiver. The transmitting optical transceiver detects the presence of the back-channel data and adjusts one or more of its operating parameters based on the back-channel data. There are other embodiments as well.