Abstract-Here we demonstrate theoretically that stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) can induce a phase shift of the optical carrier relative to its sidebands due to the waveguiding effect of the optical fiber on the acoustic wave. This causes conversion of frequency modulation to intensity modulation, which results in an increase in the relative intensity noise and degradation of the modulation response of directly modulated lasers after propagation in an optical fiber, in agreement with our experimental observations. Suppression of SBS can be achieved at low frequencies and high modulation powers due to the laser adiabatic chirp.Index Terms-Brillouin scattering, laser noise, optical fiber communication, optical fiber measurement, optical modulation, optical propagation in nonlinear media, semiconductor lasers.