Abstract
In this paper, effect of seasonal temperature fluctuations on performance of chromatic dispersion compensated 160 Gbps optical fiber networks is investigated. Compensation of temperature dispersion effects on single mode fiber (SMF) is obtained by adjusting the length of the dispersion compensation fiber (DCF) as compensation and compensation slope factors of SMF fiber vary with temperature. Based on temperature dependence models and measurements, simulation studies have been carried out and the obtained results show expected quantitative compensation requirements for seasonal thermal effects. The range of temperatures considered corresponds to seasonal ones for Muscat area with changes from −10°C to 60°C. This has been done for typical optical fiber spans of SMF and DCF fibers for 160 Gbps rates. In addition to this, the results that the NRZ coding format is more tolerant to temperature changes than the RZ format.