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We investigate the possibilities of 40 and 4×40 Gb/s time division multiplexing wavelength division multiplexing (TDM/WDM) return-to-zero (RZ) transmission over embedded standard single-mode fibers (SMF) at a transmission wavelength of 1.55 μm both experimentally and theoretically. Dispersion of the SMF is compensated by a dispersion compensating fiber (DCF). Transmission over a span of 150 km of SMF in the single-channel case and of 100 km SMF in the multichannel case are reported. Numerical calculations are employed to investigate the possibility of cascading the spans both for single-channel and multichannel transmission. For single-channel transmission, it is shown that optimum performance is achieved with postcompensation of the DCF. The input power at the SMF and DCF input have to be chosen carefully. For four channel transmission, the performance is mainly limited by residual dispersion in the outermost wavelength channels. It is shown numerically that improvement is achieved by employing the newest type DCF which also compensates the dispersion slope of the SMF. For a WDM channel separation of 2 nm no significant additional degradation due to cross-phase modulation (XPM) or four-wave mixing is observed [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]