  We study the dispersion and leakage properties for the recently reported
low-loss photonic band-gap fiber by Smith et al. [Nature 424, 657 (2003)]. We
find that surface modes have a significant impact on both the dispersion and
leakage properties of the fundamental mode. Our dispersion results are in
qualitative agreement with the dispersion profile reported recently by Ouzounov
et al. [Science 301, 1702 (2003)] though our results suggest that the observed
long-wavelength anomalous dispersion is due to an avoided crossing (with
surface modes) rather than band-bending caused by the photonic band-gap
boundary of the cladding.
