Patent ID: 7522842

Claim:
An Optical communication system comprising: an optical transmitter node for transmitting an optical signal; an optical receiver node, coupled to said optical transmitter by a transmission path for receiving said optical signal, said transmission path comprising a plurality of spans of optical fiber; a transmission path dispersion compensator which performs dispersion compensation on a transmission path basis; an amplifier site, for each of said plurality of spans, for compensating for signal loss as said optical signal propagates through each span and optically coupling adjacent spans, each amplifier site comprising a single optical amplifier, said single amplifier comprising a Raman Pump/amplifier; wherein said transmission path dispersion compensator is located at said optical transmitter node, and compensates for all of the dispersion across the transmission path in the electrical domain; and wherein said transmission path dispersion compensator comprises: a processor adapted to determine a compensation function that substantially mitigates the chromatic dispersion imparted to the communications signal by the optical communications system; a digital filter for filtering an electrical input signal using the compensation function to generate a predistorted electrical signal; and an optical modulator for modulating an optical source using the predistorted electrical signal to generate a corresponding predistorted optical signal for transmission through the optical communications system.