Measured temporal and spectral PMD characteristics and their implications for network-level mitigation approaches

Signal degradation due to polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) effects may become significant for signaling rates of 10 Gb/s, 40 Gb/s, and beyond. To assess the utility of various PMD mitigation schemes, temporal and spectral measurements of differential group delay (DGD) were made on 95 km of buried standard single-mode fiber over an 86d period to determine the distribution and rate of change of high-DGD events. As expected, statistical analysis of variations in DGD indicate that excursions from the mean DGD by factors of 3.7 or higher have very low probability. For this link, the DGD varied slowly with time (having a drift time of about 3.4 d) and rapidly with wavelength. The DGD data agree well with results of similar experiments reported in the literature. Statistical analysis of the measured DGD data shows that high-DGD episodes will be exceedingly rare and short-lived. The impact of PMD on network operations is explored and approaches to ensure network reliability are reviewed for network operators given the task of transporting high-bit-rate channels over fiber links with known PMD characteristics.