In the paper, the authors compare efficiency of two physical dispersion compensation methods for single channel and 8-channel WDM fibre-optical transmission systems using return-to-zero (RZ) and non-return-to-zero (NRZ) line codes for operation within optical C-band frequencies by means of computer simulations. As one of the most important destructive effects in fibre optical transmission systems (FOTS) is chromatic dispersion (CD), it is very important to reduce its negative effect on a transmitted signal. Dispersion compensation methods that were implemented in the research were dispersion compensating fibre (DCF) and fibre Bragg grating (FBG). The main goal of the paper was to find out which dispersion compensation method (DCF or FBG) provided the highest performance increase for fibre-optical transmission system and provided the longest transmission distance after dispersion compensation was implemented at different locations in the fibre-optical line while RZ or NRZ line codes were used. In the paper the reference point of signal quality for all measurements, which were obtained at the receiver, was BER < 10 -12 .