Systems and methods are disclosed with a spatial-domain-based multi-dimensional coded-modulation scheme that improves dramatically OSNR sensitivity and tolerance to fiber nonlinearities by using D-dimensional signal constellations, where D=2(2+M)N. The factor 2 originates from two polarizations, 2+M electrical basis functions are selected (2 in-phase/quadrature channels and M pulse-position like basis functions), and N represents the number of orbital angular momentum (OAM) states used in FMFs/MMFs. For single mode fiber applications N is 1.