For over a decade, geophysicists have been advocating for the integration of smart cables within telecommunication infrastructure. These cables, at a modest increase in cost ranging from 10% to 20%, offer the capacity to accommodate sensors within their repeaters, mainly designed to monitor seafloor motion, water pressure, and temperature.
Despite the compelling benefits, persuading telecom operators to adopt this technology has proven challenging until recently, as noted by Charlotte Rowe, a geophysicist affiliated with Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The journey of integrating scientific sensors into the high-value hardware of the billion-dollar subsea telecom industry has been a challenging endeavor, although encouraging advancements are currently in motion.
Shared Cable Infrastructure: Telecom + Science
In the context of addressing challenges posed by climate change and enhancing disaster preparedness, the Joint Task Force for Science Monitoring and Reliable Telecommunications (SMART) Subsea Cables, an initiative under the United Nations, aims to equip new commercial undersea telecom cables with sensors designed to measure pressure, seismic acceleration, and temperature.
By harnessing the power and data transfer capabilities of these cables, scientists envision the ability to gather seafloor data on an unprecedented scale. This data could facilitate rapid detection and dissemination of information regarding potential tsunamis, surpassing current capabilities. Notably, Bruce Howe, who chairs the SMART task force and is affiliated with the University of Hawaii, operates the world's deepest science observatory utilizing an abandoned telecom cable located approximately 100 kilometers north of Oahu.
Forging ahead, in December 2023, researchers with Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) laid the first “wet demonstration” test of a 21-kilometer cable in the Mediterranean Sea east of Sicily. They also showed that a smart cable could be unraveled from a ship as fast as a standard cable. This is an important factor as ship time is an expensive part of deploying cable projects.
Moreover, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) in the US are utilizing an active fiber optic cable situated off Oliktok Point on the North Slope of Alaska.Their objective is to investigate the conditions of the Arctic seafloor, extending their study up to 20 miles from the shoreline.
Upon probing the permafrost on the Arctic seafloor, researchers employed pulses of laser light transmitted through a submarine telecommunications fiber-optic cable buried off the coast of Alaska, extending northward from Oliktok Point. Via a technique called distributed temperature sensing, the light is captured at two wavelengths, or colors, and compared to determine the temperature of the cable at every yard.
Upcoming Smart Cables
In the next few months, Portugal is expected to sign a deal to begin its work on a new 3700-kilometer-long fiber-optic cable stretching west across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean to Madeira and the Azores. Hailed as one of the world’s first “smart” cables, capable not only of carrying internet data but also monitoring the ocean above and the earth below, the EUR 154 million Portugal SMART Atlantic CAM will be able to detect tsunami waves practically where they are spawned.
Aside from the Portuguese cable initiative, New Caledonia and Vanuatu, situated in the South Pacific Ocean, have forged an agreement in January 2024 to install a 375-kilometer-long smart cable connecting them. France has undertaken the financial responsibility for scientific endeavors associated with this project.
The US National Science Foundation is also considering to connect Antarctica to New Zealand with a smart cable, while several groups are seeking to connect Europe to Japan under the Arctic through the Northwest Passage.
Alcatel also announced its commitment to have its SMART cable technology prepared by 2025.
Key Societal Benefits
Putting regions susceptible to tsunamis as a priority for the implementation of smart cables is to be expected. With climate change being humanity’s greatest existential threat, the importance of smart subsea cables arises. The sensors slated for integration have the capacity to enhance the depiction of sea level rise. This phenomenon is influenced locally by alterations in currents, shifts in the sea floor, as well as thermal expansion of water and ice melting.
In addition to enhancing earthquake and tsunami monitoring capabilities, smart cables will also be able to detect subtle seismic waves originating from distant regions on the opposite side of the planet, traversing through its interior. Those waves have the same purpose as x-rays, creating pictures of features in the Earth’s underlying mantle such as tectonic plates and volcanic hot spots.
When a subsea cable experiences a service interruption, sensor data could help companies understand whether a submarine eruption or landslide is responsible.
In the near future, the SMART Subsea Cables initiative aims to be a fruitful marriage with telecom – connectivity, climate, and disaster risk reduction (DRR) – saving resources on all fronts. If viewed as a business opportunity, SMART Subsea Cables will act to catalyze improvement of the cable industry financing market and aid funds allocation.