A comprehensive study of an all-optical chaotic communication system, including experimental realization, real-world testing and performance characterization through bit-error-rate analysis, is presented. Pseudorandom bit sequences that are effectively encrypted in a broadband carrier produced by a chaotic emitter and sent for transmission are recovered at the receiver side. Bit-error-rate (BER) values as low as 10-7 for 1 Gb/s data rate have been achieved. Different data code lengths and bit-rates at the Gb/s region have been tested. The application of optical transmission using 100km fiber spools in an in-situ experiment and 120km in an installed optical network showed that transmission effects do not act as a considerably deteriorating factor in the final performance of chaos-based optical communication systems.