An apparatus comprises an optical transmitter that comprises a processor and at least one optical modulator. The processor is configured to generate electronic representations of at least two pre-dispersion-compensated phase-conjugated optical variants carrying a same modulated payload data for transmission. The at least one optical modulator is configured to modulate the electronic representations, wherein an amount of dispersion induced on the pre-dispersion-compensated phase-conjugated optical variants depends on an accumulated dispersion (AD) of a transmission link through which the pre-dispersion-compensated phase-conjugated optical variants are to be transmitted. The amount of dispersion induced on the phase-conjugated optical variants may be approximately −AD/2, where AD is the accumulated dispersion of the transmission link. The pre-dispersion-compensated phase-conjugated optical variants are different from one another in one or more dimensions such as the polarization of light, the time of transmission, the spatial localization, the optical carrier wavelength, or the subcarrier frequency during transmission.