In this paper, numerical simulation is conducted to investigate the generation, transmission and detection of a 110 Gbps optical Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) signal. The transmitter has been designed using a Quad Mach-Zehnder IQ Modulator. At the transmitter, a 110 Gbps optical MSK signal with constant envelope and a continuous phase is generated by combining signals of I-arm and $$90^\circ$$ phase shifted of Q-arm. Error-free transmission of 110 Gbps optical MSK signal is achieved after traversing a distance of 240 km, also a comparison is made with respect to Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK) to show its effectiveness. At the receiver side, the original signal is recovered through a balanced detection method, with a power penalty of around 3.34 dB. Also, BER curves of different bit rates for MSK are studied ranging from 40 to 120 Gbps and found that maximum 110 Gbps can be achieved error-free. The optical spectrum of both MSK and DPSK signals are observed and found that MSK is having narrower main lobes with smaller side lobes compared with that of DPSK, which in turn results in an increase in spectral efficiency and reduction in intersymbol interference.