An optical coding protocol includes a first information channel having a first information bit slot and a first control bit slot, and a second information channel having a second information bit slot and a second control bit slot, wherein the first and second information bit slots and the first and second control bit slots all have a same width, wherein the first information bit slot and the first control bit slot are shifted with respect to each other by a first integer number of the slot width, wherein the second information bit slot and the second control bit slot are shifted with respect to each other by a second integer number of the slot width, and wherein the first integer does not equal to the second integer.