Patent ID: 7139489

Claim:
A method of compensating for chromatic dispersion in an optical signal transmitted on a long-haul terrestrial optical communication system including a plurality of spans, said method comprising: allowing chromatic dispersion to accumulate over a plurality of spans in a transmission path, said transmission path including a plurality of high loss spans, at least some of said high loss spans extending from one optical amplifier to another optical amplifier; and identifying a plurality of non-periodically spaced low loss spans in said transmission path, at least some of said low loss spans extending from one optical amplifier to another optical amplifier, each of said low loss spans having an associated loss lower than a loss associated with each of said high loss spans in said transmission path; compensating for dispersion accumulated on said plurality of spans using a plurality of separate dispersion compensating fibers, each of said dispersion compensating fibers being directly coupled to an associated one of said low loss spans.