Sparkle, the first international service provider (ISP) in Italy and among the top global operators, has joined the European research project, ECSTATIC, to develop innovative solutions to enhance the detection capabilities of submarine cable systems in identifying seismic phenomena.
Recent experiments suggest that integrating high-speed optical communication with sensing could turn submarine fiber-optic cables into a global distributed sensing system for earthquake and tsunami detection and infrastructure monitoring. With over five billion kilometers of optical fiber cables already installed—many of which traverse undersea regions and areas beyond the reach of conventional sensors—there is a unique opportunity to repurpose the existing network for large-scale sensing without additional deployment. However, unlocking this potential will require an overhaul of communication techniques, signal characteristics, and network architectures.
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Thanks to a EUR 4 million grant from the European Union, the ECSTATIC project (a consortium of 14 academic and industrial partners) seeks to leverage digital subsea infrastructures by developing a groundbreaking interferometry and polarization-based methodology for vibration and acoustic fiber-optic sensing. This ground-breaking approach will significantly improve sensitivity, distance range, and localization. Moreover, the integration of advanced data processing and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) will ensure real-time sensing of events and network conditions with high accuracy. Finally, the project will test these innovations in real-world telecom environments, paving the way for their standardization and widespread adoption.
Research activities are employing the Tyrrhenian segment of Sparkle’s BlueMed submarine cable system, from Genoa to Palermo, to validate the use of these new technologies for seismic early warning, predictive maintenance, and network integrity, while also leveraging Sparkle’s network operation center (NOC) in Catania for data storage.
Sparkle’s involvement in this research project is part of a wider initiative to explore the supplementary use of submarine fiber optic cables for scientific research and civil protection applications. Over the past two years, the global operator has conducted several experiments on its Mednautilus cable system in collaboration with the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), gaining profound experience and a vast historical data base.
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“Our involvement in the ECSTATIC project is a clear example of Sparkle’s vision to push the boundaries of what digital networks can achieve,” commented Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle. “By using our existing global fiber infrastructure, we demonstrate how the telecommunication industry can play a critical role in seismic monitoring and network protection.”
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