Abstract: An optical backplane system is provided. The optical backplane system includes at least one transceiver, at least one optical connector, and a plurality of multimode optical fibers coupled to the at least one optical connector. Each multimode optical fiber includes a graded index glass core having a diameter in the range of 24 microns to 40 microns, a graded index having an alpha less than 2.12 and a maximum relative refractive index in the range between 0.6 percent and 1.9 percent. The optical backplane further includes a cladding surrounding and in contact with the core. The cladding includes a depressed-index annular portion. The fiber has an overfilled bandwidth greater than 2.0 GHz-km at 1310 nm.