10-Gbit/s transoceanic soliton transmission using mostly normal dispersion fiber

Soliton transmission using periodic dispersion compensation has recently become an attractive method to reduce amplitude and timing errors by means of soliton power enhancement in low path-averaged dispersion transmission lines. We report here the results of error-free soliton transmission exceeding 10 Mm in a dispersion-mapped system consisting of mostly normal dispersion fiber, but in which a low path-averaged anomalous dispersion is obtained. A consequence of low dispersion in soliton transmission systems using frequency-sliding techniques is a stronger impact from the frequency-sliding filters on the pulse dynamics.