coupled as an input to the opmm is converted to an electrical signal by a photodetector 215 at step 406 the electrical signal converted by the photodetector is amplified by a combination low noise wideband transimpedance limiting post amplifier 220 at step 408 the amplified electrical signal is applied as an input to a cdr circuit 230 the cdr circuit automatically locks to the incoming data rate to extract clock rates and synchronizes the data the cdr circuit then provides the data rate information to a mpp 250 or optionally to a deser 240 at step 408 2 the data rate information from the cdr is optionally input to a deser 240 the deser 240 converts serial high speed data into lower speed parallel data if necessary before the data rate information is processed by the mpp 250 at step 410 a mpp 250 identifies the data protocol by comparing the rate information provided by the cdr circuit 230 to a stored data rate protocol table as depicted in table 1 above or as described above by using network statistics and protocol probability as mentioned table 1 is provided merely for exemplary purposes and it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the present invention can be advantageously employed implementing various other protocols at step 412 the mpp 250 identifies the overhead error bits ber by comparing the data rate of the input conditioned optical signal to the identified protocol in the stored data rate protocol table the mpp 250 then communicates the ber information to a micro controller at step 414 the micro controller 260 receives the ber information identified by the mpp 250.