An optical fiber that is Few Moded at 1550 nm, comprising: a core extending from a center of the optical fiber to a radius, a, the core further having a raised triangle profile, the raised triangle profile having a refractive index that decreases linearly from n core at the center to a value greater than half of n core at a; a cladding surrounding the core, the cladding comprising: a down-doped cladding region abutting or adjacent to the core and extending radially outward from the core; and an undoped cladding region abutting the down-doped cladding region and extending radially outward from the down-doped cladding region; wherein the core and the cladding have a refractive index profile that is structured to support propagation of a plurality of desired signal-carrying modes while suppressing undesired modes; wherein the core and the cladding are configured to support a propagation at 1550 nm, of first four LP modes, LP 01 , LP 11 , LP 02 , LP 21 , of a spatially multiplexed optical signal; wherein V ~ 5.31 and group delay curves for the first four LP modes simultaneously cross, resulting in low differential group delay, DGD, across all four LP modes; wherein the core and the cladding are configured such that undesired modes have respective effective indices that are close to or less than the cladding index so as to result in leaky modes that leak into the outer cladding region; and wherein the index spacing between the desired mode having the lowest effective index and the leaky mode with the highest effective index is sufficiently large so as to substantially prevent coupling therebetween. a core extending from a center of the optical fiber to a radius, a, the core further having a raised triangle profile, the raised triangle profile having a refractive index that decreases linearly from n core at the center to a value greater than half of n core at a; a cladding surrounding the core, the cladding comprising: a down-doped cladding region abutting or adjacent to the core and extending radially outward from the core; and an undoped cladding region abutting the down-doped cladding region and extending radially outward from the down-doped cladding region; a down-doped cladding region abutting or adjacent to the core and extending radially outward from the core; and an undoped cladding region abutting the down-doped cladding region and extending radially outward from the down-doped cladding region; wherein the core and the cladding have a refractive index profile that is structured to support propagation of a plurality of desired signal-carrying modes while suppressing undesired modes; wherein the core and the cladding are configured to support a propagation at 1550 nm, of first four LP modes, LP 01 , LP 11 , LP 02 , LP 21 , of a spatially multiplexed optical signal; wherein V ~ 5.31 and group delay curves for the first four LP modes simultaneously cross, resulting in low differential group delay, DGD, across all four LP modes; wherein the core and the cladding are configured such that undesired modes have respective effective indices that are close to or less than the cladding index so as to result in leaky modes that leak into the outer cladding region; and wherein the index spacing between the desired mode having the lowest effective index and the leaky mode with the highest effective index is sufficiently large so as to substantially prevent coupling therebetween. <EOS>