Experimental Demonstration of Massive WDM over Transoceanic Distances Using Dispersion-Managed Solitons

By combining a special dispersion map having nearly constant path-average dispersion, a hybrid amplification scheme involving backward-pumped Raman gain, and sliding-frequency guiding filters, we have demonstrated massive WDM at 10 Gbit/s per channel, error free (BER =1x10 sup (-9) for all channels), without the use of forward error correction, over greater than 9000 km, using dispersion managed solitons. The number of channels (27) was limited only by a temporary lack of amplifier power and gain flatness. Terabit capacities are to be expected in the near future.