Modal birefringence at low loss and an approximately zero material dispersion wavelength of around 1.3 μm, and chromatic dispersion characteristics for polarization mode dispersion in the <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0.9-1.3 \mu</tex> m wavelength region are measured in single-mode fibers with stress-induced anisotropy. It is found from the measurements that the quantity concerned with the difference between the phase and group velocities equals approximately <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-(8.5 \pm 3)\times 10^{-2}</tex> at the 1.290 μm wavelength in actual silica fibers. In addition, a stress-optical constant is evaluated from the measurements of linear birefringence caused by externally applied pressure, and it is <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">(3.30 \pm 0.05) \times 10^{-5}</tex> mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> /kg . W at the 1.290 μm wavelength.