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Optical fiber has evolved from a not-so-transparent glass tube to an extraordinarily efficient transmission medium. It is now acknowledged as a central element of modern telecommunication, being part of the whole optimization process to further improve transmission system performance and cost. In this paper, we briefly introduce key fiber characteristics. We then review the elements of fiber design for optimized optical transport networks and show how fibers have evolved over the last ten years to keep pace with more and more demanding requirement of transmission system.

Optical fibers can now be encountered anywhere in a telecommunication network. In that field, one of the major changes that occurred, at the turn of the Century, is the growing interest in Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) architectures, that is, optical fibers replacing copper in access networks to directly connect subscribers. This gave birth to a new category of single mode fibers referred to as bend-insensitive fibers, which has represented one of the major development focus of optical fiber manufacturers for the last 5 years. In parallel, key evolutions also took place in data communications with the decision to create, at the end of this decade, the next generation Ethernet hierarchy for equipment interfaces at rates of 40 and 100 Gb/s. This is driving recent research on fibers to be used to transport such high-rate signals between these equipments.