Increasing the capacity in real WDM network requirements: dispersion management and wide-band flat-gain optical amplifiers in Nx10 Gb/s transmission systems

In this presentation, we will study the system design aspects of high-capacity, large wavelength span, and long distance transmission links based on conventional single-mode fiber. A particular attention will be brought to the dispersion map architecture. Indeed, a careful design of this map in terms of choice, position, and length of the dispersion-compensating fiber will reveal it to be a critical parameter for a reliable transmission in view of the interplay between the accumulated chromatic dispersion and the nonlinear effects. We will show that limitations brought by modulational instability and the accumulated dispersion per amplifier span rule out the propagation of the channels in a predominantly-positive total dispersion regime.