We demonstrate an integrated fiber-photonic crystal system with a uniform band gap of around 1550 nm with insertion loss as low as 3.5 dB. One-dimensional photonic crystals fabricated on this platform exhibit a higher-order photonic band gap with over 30 dB suppression of transmission from 1400 to 1700 nm that is consistent with simulation. These results may lead to true integration of photonic crystals into optical fiber communication systems as optical switches and routers. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.