An apparatus including a data framer and an optical transmitter. The data framer is used to frame a data stream into a plurality of frames, each of the frames includes a plurality of fields sized to align the frames with a word boundary greater than or equal to four bytes long. The optical transmitter is coupled to the data framer and is used to transmit the frames. Included is an apparatus with at least one component for implementing a method for encapsulating a data stream with at least one Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) Encapsulation Method (GEM) payload aligned with a word boundary of at least four bytes long, encapsulating the GEM payload with a GPON Transmission Convergence (GTC) frame aligned with the word boundary, and transmitting the GTC frame.