Design of a Transoceanic Cable Protection System

A system of underwater fiber optic cables spanning the world's oceans carries 99% of international communication data. Billions of dollars are invested into this network, resulting in 36% annual growth over the last 7 years. Over 150 cable damage incidents occur per year, causing significant losses to available cable bandwidth. Sixty percent of the faults are caused by human action, such as fishing and anchoring. Twenty percent are caused by random natural events and component failures, while the remaining 20% of fault causes are unknown. In addition, repairing a fault takes on average 13 days and costs $6 million, with more incurred costs due to the inability to provide bandwidth to its customers. This paper describes a design and operation to protect these cables by deployment of Transoceanic Cable Protection System (TCPS). The system consists of a Mission Control Center to accomplish three functions: (1) Threat Identification, (2) Damage Prevention, and (3) Coordination of Cable Repair. A probabilistic Monte Carlo simulation was developed to determine the effects of the TCPS on cable downtime, threat detection, mean time between failure, and cost per fault. The model evaluates the performance of TCPS based on the input distributions for threat generation, threat inter-arrival time, identification of threats, damage prevention, and repair time. A utility vs. cost analysis factoring in prevention, identification, cable downtime, lifespan, and environmental impact indicates that a passive hydrophone array is the most effective design for the Threat Identification function.