16. A digital demodulation and decoding apparatus comprising: a receiver optical interface module configured to: receive a plurality of optical signals on a plurality of optical channels from an optical fiber communication system; and digitize the received plurality of optical signals to obtain a plurality of data streams corresponding to the plurality of optical signals; a unique word identification module coupled with the receiver optical interface module configured to: identify unique words in each of the plurality of data streams; and determine one or more characteristics of the plurality of data streams based at least in part on the unique words, wherein the one or more characteristics includes at least one of particular received optical channels corresponding to the plurality of data streams or a timing offset between one or more of the plurality of data streams; and a demodulator module coupled with the unique word identification module and configured to demodulate and decode the plurality of data streams into data transport frames using the one or more characteristics of the plurality of data streams determined using the identified unique words.
17. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the timing offset is determined by comparing times of receipt of the unique words associated with the plurality of data streams.