Integrated performance monitoring (PM); optical layer operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P); alarming; amplification, or the like is described in optical transceivers, such as multi-source agreement (MSA)-defined modules. An optical transceiver defined by an MSA agreement can include advanced integrated functions for carrier-grade operation which preserves the existing MSA specifications allowing the optical transceiver to operate with any compliant MSA host device with advanced features and functionality. An XFP module can include integrated circuitry configured to provide forward error correction encoding and decoding; a transmitter communicatively coupled to the integrated circuit; a receiver communicatively coupled to the integrated circuit; and a module housing in which the integrated circuitry, the transmitter, and the receiver are disposed, wherein the module housing is pluggable in a host device configured to operate the pluggable optical transceiver, and wherein the forward error correction encoding and decoding is performed transparently to the host device.