In one embodiment, an apparatus includes n electrical communication channels, m optical communication media interfaces, and a plurality of muxes. The plurality of muxes are configured to receive an information stream, the information stream carried over the n electrical communication channels and the m optical communication media interfaces. The plurality of muxes are further configured to transform the information stream from v virtual lanes, each virtual lane comprising a plurality of data blocks from the information stream and an alignment block, wherein v is a positive integer multiple of the least common multiple of m and n.