© 1983-2012 IEEE. Optical feed-forward equalization (FFE) of a single-mode fiber link has been studied theoretically. It is demonstrated that a simple short optical FFE having three to five taps can provide significant performance improvement of bandwidth-limited transmitters for both short and long reach links compared with the nonequalized scenario. Since optical FFEs can simultaneously operate on multiple wavelength division multiplexing channels, they can provide a simple, low power, and cost-effective solution for high-speed optical communication links.