Repeaterless 10.7-Gb/s DPSK Transmission Over 304 km of SSMF Using a Coherent Receiver and Electronic Dispersion Compensation

Record repeaterless transmission of differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) at 10.7 Gb/s over 304 km of standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) is demonstrated using a coherent optical receiver and electronic dispersion compensation. This is the longest repeaterless 10-Gb/s transmission over SSMF in the absence of Raman amplifiers. The high receiver sensitivity and the high tolerance to nonlinearities of DPSK allow us to overcome a total link loss of 58 dB with a 3-dB system margin. Coherent detection enables linear electrical dispersion compensation and avoids the use of optical dispersion compensation.