A method and apparatus are provided for error correction of a communication signal. Joint operation of forward error correction (FEC) techniques and automatic repeat request (ARQ) techniques are conducted above a physical layer of a communication network. Forward error correction is applied if the number of errors is equal to or less than an error threshold. Automatic repeat request techniques are applied if errors remain in the data decoding using the forward error correction or if an error correcting module reports a failure in the data. In an embodiment, the error threshold is two errors or less. In an embodiment, information is encoded in a data link layer using a forward error correction module providing a code rate of 0.98 or greater.