A system and method for testing the jitter tolerance and signal attenuation tolerance of an optoelectronic device is disclosed. The system includes a generation circuit, delay circuit and comparison circuitry. A first sequence of bits is generated, delayed, and sent to the optoelectronic device. The optoelectronic device receives the bits and retransmits them as a second sequence to the comparison circuitry, which compares the two bit sequences to determine a bit error rate. The bit error rate is then used to determine the jitter tolerance and, in an alternate embodiment, the signal attenuation tolerance of the optoelectronic device being tested.