A method and apparatus of using an input signal from a single-transverse mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with a multimode fiber (MMF) link to enable improved stabilization in time variation and improved modal dispersion of the output signal to facilitate the use of adaptive equalization techniques. The improvement results from using a conditioned launch of the input signal from the VCSEL into the MMF link. The increase in performance may be measured by the improved impulse response and an improved bandwidth-distance product of the MMF link.