Cabled-fibre, 1.6Gbit/s, 1550nm transmission experiment

We report on a 1.6Gbit/s transmission experiment through 82.5 km of production-type low-loss pure-silica-core cable (stranded and ribbon) with 43 rotary splices and 2 biconic connectors. A packaged 1.55?m distributed feedback (DFB) laser was the light source. A bit error rate of 2 × 10?10 was achieved using manufacturable transmitters and receivers with no observable error floor.