Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) with a stepped raised-core profile and one layer equally spaced holes in the cladding are analyzed. Using effective index method and considering a raised step refractive index difference between the index of the core and the effective index of the cladding, we improve the characteristic parameters such as numerical aperture and V-parameter, and reduce its bending loss to about one tenth of a conventional PCF. Implementing such a structure in PCFs may be one step forward to achieve low loss PCFs for communication applications.