Designing Cost-Effective and Reliable Submarine Communications Cable Path: Lessons From the Tonga Volcano Disaster

Submarine communications cables are essential infrastructure in modern society, but they are also vulnerable to unpredictable disasters, and their breakage may have dire social and economic consequences. Motivated by the lessons from the Tonga volcano eruption in 2022, we incorporate the volcano risk factor with the other considerations (including earthquakes, fishing, anchoring, terrain slope, and marine protected areas) that have been considered in previous publications, and explain the Fast Marching Method-based path planning of submarine cables. To consider the effect of volcanos, we also introduce constraints based on keeping safety distances (zero, short or long) from each volcano, by setting infinite risk value in areas to be avoided. We then provide the approximate Pareto front of the cost and risk of submarine cable paths for different stakeholders' reference. We demonstrate that significant cost savings and reduced cable faults could have been achieved for the Tonga-Fiji cable system using our method, keeping in mind that our conclusions are based only on publicly available data.

Automated summary

Submarine communications cables are crucial for modern society, but their susceptibility to unpredictable disasters poses significant risks to society and the economy. This study integrates the volcano risk factor with other considerations (such as earthquakes, fishing, anchoring, terrain slope, and marine protected areas) and explains the path planning of submarine cables using the Fast Marching Method. By incorporating safety distance constraints and infinite risk values in areas to be avoided, we present approximate Pareto frontiers for cost and risk of submarine cable paths, providing valuable references for different stakeholders. Our findings demonstrate potential cost savings and reduced cable faults in the Tonga-Fiji cable system by utilizing our method, although our conclusions are based on publicly available data only.