A system and method are provided for transporting a serial stream via a lower speed network using multiple parallel paths. At a transmitter, an optical or electromagnetic waveform is accepted representing a serial stream of digital information, and unbundled into n virtual information streams. Each virtual information stream is divided into a sequence of segments. Each segment is encapsulated, creating a sequence of packets by adding a start indicator to the beginning of each segment, and a terminate indicator to the end of each segment. Each packet is disinterleaved across m lanes and reinterleaved into n branches of framed data. Optical or electromagnetic waveforms representing the framed data are transmitted via n network branches. A receiver is also provided, which essentially reverses the above-described transmission method.