An optical transceiver includes a transmitter including transmitter signal processing circuitry configured to receive a transmit signal and provide two drive voltage signals V1, V2 to a modulator configured to modulate a laser based thereon; and a receiver including i) optical couplers configured to coherently combine received signals with a Local Oscillator (LO) formed by the laser and provide the combined signals to photodetectors for balanced detection, and ii) receiver signal processing circuitry configured to demodulate outputs from the balanced detection, wherein the receiver signal processing circuitry comprises an analog front-end and digital back-end.