Embodiments for optical communication are provided in which a receiver includes a digital signal processor configured to process a digital form of an input signal. In one embodiment, the digital signal processor includes a first electronic chromatic dispersion compensation module for compensating the digital form of the input signal, at least one nonlinearity compensation stage for serially compensating an output of the electronic chromatic dispersion compensation module; and a second electronic chromatic dispersion compensation module for compensating an output of the at least one nonlinearity compensation stage.