Systems and methods are disclosed for optically communicating data by, at a transmitter side, encoding a block of input bits by one or more outer encoders, and after interleaving the encoded bits, permuting the encoded bits according to a predetermined sequence or order, and further encoding the encoded bits by an inner encoder, and at a receiver side, decoding received bits with an inner decoder, and after the encoded bits are permuted, subsequently decoding by and outer decoder, and returning information bits at an outer decoder as an output. The soft-decision and hard-decision outputs from the outer BCH code help the inner LDPC decoder to have better estimation of the received bits and gain performance. The performance in higher-order modulation formats could be as large as 0.5 dB in one embodiment.