Improved standard fibre performance by positioning the dispersion compensating fibre

By placing the dispersion compensating fibre (DCF) first within each amplified span of a 10 Gbit/s standard fibre (SMF) dispersion-managed link the authors show, by numerical simulation, that the performance of such systems in terms of the Q factor is greater compared to systems positioning the DCF last. Examining their performance over 2000 km of standard fibre, it was found that the optimum channel power can be increased by 6 dB by having the DCF first.