Patent ID: 6943935

Claim:
An apparatus for transporting an optical signal at a signal wavelength comprising: an optical fiber span comprising: first and second PDPS optical fiber sections having positive dispersion and positive dispersion slope at the signal wavelength; a NDNS optical fiber section disposed between said first and second PDPS optical fiber sections and having negative dispersion and negative dispersion slope at the signal wavelength; and a pump light emitting device optically coupled to one of the PDPS optical fiber sections for providing Raman amplification to the optical fiber span, wherein the PDPS optical fiber coupled to the pump light emitting device has an effective area of greater than or eaual to about 80 μm 2 at a wavelength of 1550 nm; wherein the ratio of the combined lengths of the PDPS optical fiber sections to the NDNS optical fiber section is greater than about 0.7.