Experiment and analyses of 20-Gbit/s soliton transmission systems using installed optical fiber cable

Experiment and analyses of 20-Gbit/s soliton transmission systems using installed dispersion-shifted fibers are reported. In the conventional soliton transmission the group velocity dispersion (GVD) of fibers must be positive and constant. However, it is demonstrated here that the soliton transmission can be realized in the installed optical fibers with positive dispersion and dispersion variations by using the dispersion-allocated (D-A) solitons. A phase measurement method is proposed first for the measurement of the GVD of the installed fibers necessary for the soliton transmission systems, and then GVDs of fibers installed in the Tokyo Metropolitan optical loop network are measured. A 20-Gbit/s-2000-km soliton transmission experiment is carried out using the installed fibers with positive dispersions. Finally, computer simulations of the dispersion-allocated soliton transmission systems using the installed fibers are performed, and it is shown that any installed optical fiber can be used in the soliton transmission systems regardless of the GVD type.