We compare the performance of dispersion-managed fibers with that of dispersion-decreasing fibers and of fibers with uniform dispersion in filtered soliton wavelength-division multiplexing transmission. Alternating-sign dispersion management allows us to achieve values of collision-induced timing jitter that are comparable with what can be achieved by use of dispersion-decreasing fiber and are lower for some parameter values. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.