The waveguide and material dispersion are investigated for various silica-based single-mode optical fibres with arbitrary refractive-index profiles. It is shown that in the case of the doubly clad optical fibre with an index difference between the core and the outer cladding Δ1=1% and that between the inner cladding and the outer Δ2=−1%, the diameter of the core 2a=7.2 μm, and the thickness of the inner cladding t=0.3a, the total dispersion is reduced within ± 1 ps/km/nm over a wide spectral range of λ=1.35–1.67 μm.