A field demonstration of 20 Gb/s capacity (2/spl times/10 Gb/s) transmission over 360 km installed standard fiber

We have demonstrated two channels of 10 Gb/s transmission over 360 km installed "standard" (non-DSF) fiber lines. The system consisted of two 10 Gb/s channels with wavelengths ranging between 1552 and 1558 nm and optical repeaters separated by 120 km (corresponding to a 33 dB fiber loss and a +2100 ps/nm dispersion per repeater span). A robust system hardware design and new compact optical repeaters (incorporating Er-doped fiber amplifiers and dispersion compensation fibers) enabled us to achieve a long term "error-free" transmission over 5 days of continuous operation in the field environment (corresponding to less than 10/sup -15/ BER). The wavelength crosstalk and unequal dispersion compensation between the two channels had a negligible effect on the system performance. The result of this field experiment clearly demonstrates that both loss and dispersion of the embedded "standard" fiber in multichannel long-haul transmission systems with a 10 Gb/s OC192/STM64 line rate can be overcome.