Fig.1 Experimental set-up. Straight Line 10 Gb/s Soliton Transmission over 1000 km of Standard Fibre with In-Line Chirped Fibre Grating for Partial Dispersion Compensation

We demonstrate a highly practical and robust soliton transmission system with partial dispersion compensation. Error free transmission was obtained for 10 Gb/s data over 1000km of standard fibre with nominal dispersion of 17 ps/nm@km. Despite variations in the dispersion compensation ratio and the relatively high UV-induced birefringence of the fibre gratings the system exhibits BERs below 10 for any state of input-10 polarisation provided that the average intra-span dispersion is negative. The majority of the installed fibre base has a low dispersion at wavelengths in the region of 1300nm. Upgrading to higher bit rates using erbium-doped fibre amplifiers operating around 1550nm is attractive but then the fibre dispersion imposes a severe limitation on transmission distances. For some years there were two main approaches considered to compensate fibre dispersion: (i) linear, based on straightforward dispersion compen ation using compensating fibres or chirped fibre gratings and (ii) non-linear, based on the use of optical solitons. Both methods have their peculiar advantages and disadvantages. In particular linear systems suffer from fibre nonlinearity which deteriorates the system performance at distances exceeding just 500km while the major problems with non-linear systems are the short amplifier spacings required an