  An open ended spin chain can serves as a quantum data bus for the coherent
transfer of quantum state information. In this paper, we investigate the
efficiency of such quantum spin channels which work in a decoherence
environment. Our results show that, the decoherence will significantly reduce
the fidelity of quantum communication through the spin channels. Generally
speaking, as the distance increases, the decoherence effects become more
serious, which will put some constraints on the spin chains for long distance
quantum state transfer.
