A method to control a wavelength tunable laser diode (tunable LD) is disclosed. The tunable LD includes a SG-DFB region and a CSG-DBR region to tune the emission wavelength thereof. The CSG-DBR region includes three segments, where the refractive indices of respective segments are variable by heaters provided therein. When the electrical power supplied to two segments is optionally selected, the power supplied to the rest segment is corrected by an offset from a value reflecting physical dimensions of the heaters. The offset is determined such that the tunable LD shows the best side mode suppression ratio (SMSR).