Abstract: An optical fiber ribbon comprising a plurality of optical fibers secured or embedded substantially parallel to one another, fibers are selected and processed such that the skew in optical propagation time for signals transmitted over said plurality of optical fibers is minimized. The optical fibers are selected from the same pull and each of said optical fibers has a modal bandwidth greater than or equal to 800 Mhz.km at an operating wavelength of 1300 nm. The invention extends the practical applications of optical fiber ribbons to include synchronous parallel transmission with an aggregate data-rate.times.distance product of greater than 10 Gbit/sec.km.

Abstract: Disclosed is an optical fiber ribbon composed of a plurality of planar aligned optical fibers circumscribed by a plastic coating having a secant modulus of elasticity in the inclusive range of 150 to 300 MPa when measured at 2.5% strain as determined by the procedure described in ASTM:D638.91.