Scaling Fiber-Optic Sensing in the Global Ocean

Operational submarine fiber-optic telecommunication cables form a dense, global infrastructure that carries nearly all intercontinental internet traffic, yet their wet plants remain largely unused for environmental sensing.

This talk connects the photonics and optical networking community with emerging opportunities in subsea environmental monitoring by reviewing the basic physics and establishing five complementary methods for geophysical sensing on operational submarine fiber systems: (i) optical interferometry–based sensing, (ii) polarization-based sensing, (iii) coherent Rayleigh backscattering (including distributed acoustic sensing concepts), (iv) microwave frequency fiber interferometry, and (v) electrical sensing interpreted through Faraday’s law of induction to relate voltage disturbances to geomagnetic perturbations. These approaches can potentially enable earthquake, tsunami, and volcanic early warning, improve network resiliency monitoring, and support ocean and climate observation without physical modification of existing submarine cable systems.

The presentation examines the scientific, technical, and institutional challenges of scaling such capabilities from terrestrial fiber networks—where government-funded deployments have already demonstrated value—to the offshore domain, which remains sparsely instrumented despite being crossed by privately owned cable networks.

Subject Matter Level: Intermediate - Assumes basic knowledge of the topic

What You Will Learn:

• Submarine optical fibers can be used for environmental surveillance
• Five physics principles that enable environmental monitoring on submarine fiber cables
• The technical and institutional hurdles of moving these fiber-sensing capabilities from land-based networks to the global subsea infrastructure

Who Should Attend:

• Marine researchers/oceanographers
• Early career professional
• PhD students

About the Presenter: Valey Kamalov from The International Institute for Ocean Fiber Sensing

Valey discovered polarization-based sensing with transcontinental submarine cables in January 2020 and has been devoted to optical fiber sensing since then. He has authored numerous U.S. patents and scientific papers on fiber sensing, including most recently in Science in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2025. Valey retired from Google in 2023 after 15 ½ years of service. Valey joined Google as the company's first optical networking expert in 2007 and led the development of Google's optical networking with an innovative approach, becoming a Principal Network Engineer. Valey initiated the subsea Open Cables movement and built an industry coalition. Valey’s industry firsts include the 1st SDM cable, the 1st coherent D+ cable, 1st Open cable. Optica’s SubseaOFC Summer Schools were a groundbreaking event that Valey was the brainchild of and owned. Valey was a visiting professor/researcher at universities in Japan, the UK, the USA, PoliTo, Italy, and in 2026 at PoliMilano, Italy. He serves as Director on the Optica Foundation Board.