A combined Hadamard and companding transform technique is incorporated into orthogonal frequency division multiplexed signals to reduce the peak-to-average ratio of signals. A Hadamard transform is applied to the signals to generate a first transformed signal of subsymbols. An Inverse Fast Fourier Transform is performed on the subsymbols to generate a second transformed signal of the subsymbols. The second transformed signal is then companded, making them ready for transmission as optical signals.