Demonstration of '100% pre-compensated' DWDM transmission over 1280 km of SSMF with no inline dispersion compensation using interconnected re-circulating loops

We describe a method to study dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) transmission over amplified links that have no inline dispersion compensation and where the channels have nearly 100% pre-compensation. The approach is based on two re-circulating loops that are linked to each other. Using this apparatus, we demonstrate DWDM transmission of 16 non-return-to-zero (NRZ) 10-Gb/s channels on a 50-GHz grid over links ranging from 320 km to 1280 km of standard single mode fiber (SSMF) with pre-compensation values ranging from -5,440 ps/nm to -21,760 ps/nm.