Smart(er) Subsea Cables to Provide Early Warning System

Scientists believe the global subsea cables and communications network could serve as an early warning system for cable operators allowing them to monitor the undersea ecosystem, and enabling informed, data-driven responses. What’s needed? Just add sensors.

“Equipping the subsea telecommunications cable with sensors would help researchers better understand how deep-sea currents contribute to global climate change and improve understanding of earthquake seismology and related early warning signs for tsunamis in the earthquake-prone South Pacific region,” according to the National Science Foundation.

The global submarine cable network of more than four hundred cable systems and 1.5 million kilometers of submarine cables crosses the oceans worldwide, according to the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC), which promotes submarine cable protection and resilience.

Addressing Subsea Cable Fault Damage

With the U.N. estimating between 150 to 200 cable faults annually, operators need all the help they can get to maintain the global fiber network, which carries about 99% of internet traffic between continents. Additionally, $10 trillion of financial transactions flow over them per day.

This growing situation has businesses desperately seeking network resiliency and clamoring for always-on-network services as their data centers and apps demand maximum uptime.

The system has been beset this year with large cable outages starting in February in the Red Sea and in the spring along Western Africa, and more. The former is a dense area with a high concentration of cables adjacent to Yemen, which has seen geopolitical hostilities pre-dating 2024.

Identifying Threats to Subsea Cables

However, although most cable service interruptions have been attributed to ship anchors and fishing equipment, data received from the sensor-equipped subsea cables could help spot potential problems caused by changes in the environment. This could help with cable deployment, equipping current cables to withstand rising temperatures, volcanos, and more frequent changes in the seas.

A report in Science Magazine explained that for more than a decade, geophysicists have pushed telecom operators to consider smart cables. “For a 10% to 20% increase in cost, they say, companies could squeeze three simple sensors—for seafloor motion, water pressure, and temperature—into the cables’ repeaters, widened sections that amplify the optical signal every 70 kilometers or so.” 

It is not clear if a sensor rollout would include a retrofit of current cables or a rollout for new cable routes. Those who have opposed the fiber with sensors undersea cable on financial grounds should consider the climbing cost of subsea fiber repairs, climbing insurance rates, and the cost of downtime. This and military hostilities in the region dragged out the repairs of three cables in the Red Sea cut in February for many months.

Look for operators who are reluctant to go with smart cables (those with the three sensors) to lessen as the global network has become a target of bad actors in areas of ongoing hostilities.

Smart Sensors Offer a Built-in Option

Some ideas include incorporating scientific sensors into the cable itself, according to the NSF. This concept is promoted by the United Nations Joint Task Force on Science Monitoring and Reliable Telecommunications, which has laid out its goals.

Equipping the cable with sensors would enhance research into one of the most under-explored regions of the planet: the vast depths of the Southern Ocean, the study read.

The Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica strongly influences other oceans and climates worldwide, according to the NSF. “Equipping the subsea telecommunications cable with sensors would help researchers better understand how deep-sea currents contribute to global climate change and improve understanding of earthquake seismology and related early warning signs for tsunamis in the earthquake-prone South Pacific region.”

SMART Cables – Works in Progress

Instrumenting the deep ocean has been a challenge for ocean scientists for decades.

The Science Monitoring And Reliable Telecommunications (SMART) Subsea Cables initiative seeks to take deep ocean observing to the next level “by equipping transoceanic telecommunications cables with sensors to provide novel and persistent insights into the state of the ocean, at a modest incremental cost.”

Interest picked up last December when the NSF announced it is considering connecting Antarctica to New Zealand with a smart cable. This would be the last continent to be connected to the global undersea cable network. The entity claimed that several parties hoped to connect Europe to Japan under the Arctic through the Northwest Passage.