Highest reported bit rate of 2.5 Gb/s for optically phase-modulated radio-over-fiber (RoF) link, employing digital coherent detection, is demonstrated. Demodulation of 3×2.5 Gb/s quadrature phase-shift-keying modulated wavelength-division-multiplexed RoF channels is achieved after 79 km of transmission through deployed fiber. Error-free performance (bit-error rate corresponding to 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-4</sup> ) is achieved using a digital coherent receiver in combination with a <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i> -means algorithm for radio-frequency phase recovery.
