A photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with a zero-dispersion wavelength (ZDW) in the telecommunication region is designed and an ultra-broadband fiber optical parametric amplifier (FOPA) based on such PCF is simulated. Results show that the PCF-based FOPA exhibits much higher gain with a very broad bandwidth (covering O- to U-band) in comparison with the highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF)-based FOPA. Also, the required fiber length and the input pump power are reduced for the PCF-based FOPA. The obtained results show the great potential of the PCF-based OPA for the telecommunication applications, e.g. amplification of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) signals.