Ultralow error rate and dispersion-free transmission of 2.5 Gbit/s SONET for gigabit networks

It is demonstrated that for an NRZ modulated 1310 nm optical transmitter, dispersion-free transmission can be achieved up to approximately 250 km using dispersion-shifted singlemode fibre (DS-SMF) and optical pulse compression. This result implies that DS-SMFs have a potential advantage over standard SMFs for dual-window (1310/1550 nm) multigigabit per second transmission systems. Results on the long-term error performance of experimental prototype 2.5 Gbit/s SONET optical transmission systems are presented with measured error rates smaller than 10^-15.