Tampnet and Starboard Integrate Fiber-Optic Sensing With Maritime AI Platform in World First for Subsea Cable Protection

Tampnet and Starboard Maritime Intelligence have announced the world's first operational integration of fiber-optic sensing into an AI-powered maritime domain awareness platform, enabling real-time correlation of Distributed Acoustic Sensing and State of Polarization signals with vessel traffic data on a single operational map. The integration moves fiber sensing from a detection-only capability into active operational decision support, providing subsea cable operators with faster threat identification and clearer distinction between contact and non-contact events.

 

Strategic Significance for Critical Underwater Infrastructure

 

The integration arrives at a moment of heightened international concern about the vulnerability of subsea cables to both accidental and deliberate interference. Recent incidents involving cable damage in the Baltic Sea and other maritime regions have elevated the political and commercial priority of real-time monitoring capabilities for submarine cable infrastructure. Tampnet, as the world's largest offshore high-capacity communications network operator, operates across a dense subsea network where cable integrity is foundational to the services provided to offshore energy clients. By integrating its existing fiber sensing infrastructure with Starboard's maritime intelligence platform, Tampnet is converting passive sensing data into an operationally actionable intelligence layer that can directly inform protective responses.

 

Technical Integration of DAS and SoP

 

The integration brings together two distinct but complementary fiber-optic sensing modalities within a single operational interface. Distributed Acoustic Sensing detects acoustic and vibrational activity near the cable by measuring changes in how light backscatters along the fiber as a result of mechanical disturbance. State of Polarization sensing adds sensitivity to direct fiber contact and physical disturbance events by detecting changes in the polarization state of light propagating through the cable, providing additional confidence when assessing whether an event involves physical contact with the cable structure itself. The combination of both modalities within the same operational map, colour-coded by signal strength and correlated with AIS vessel traffic and inferred movement tracks, provides analysts with a significantly richer basis for threat assessment than either sensing type delivers in isolation.

 

Operational Workflow and Interface Design

 

Starboard chief executive Trent Fulcher has framed the integration as a meaningful step forward in how fiber sensing is operationalised, emphasising that bringing SoP into the same interface as DAS allows analysts to assess multiple sensing modalities together, directly in the context of maritime activity, while keeping the workflow simple and intuitive. The operational interface allows operators to view DAS and SoP detections on the map, quickly distinguish cable contact events from non-contact detections, correlate fiber signals with vessel traffic, and configure per-site thresholds and sensitivity settings through administrator controls. The consistent presentation of both sensing types within a single interface removes the need for analysts to switch between tools when assessing events, supporting the transition from research-driven fiber sensing toward day-to-day operational use.

 

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Tampnet's Existing Sensing Infrastructure

 

Anders Tysdal, chief infrastructure officer at Tampnet, has noted that fiber sensing is already deployed across most of the company's subsea network, meaning the integration builds on existing physical infrastructure rather than requiring new sensor installations. The ability to make existing fiber sensing infrastructure operationally useful without significant additional capital investment is commercially significant because it reduces the barrier to adoption and shortens the time to operational benefit. The integration with Starboard provides the software and intelligence layer that converts raw sensing data into actionable situational awareness, effectively realising the operational value of infrastructure that has already been deployed.

 

Use Cases and Protective Capabilities

 

The combined DAS and SoP capability supports a range of protective use cases, including early detection of potential cable interference, improved verification of physical contact events, and enhanced situational awareness when vessels operate near critical subsea routes. The ability to distinguish between contact and non-contact events is particularly important for cable protection operations because it allows operators to prioritise responses appropriately, focusing rapid intervention on situations involving direct physical threat to the cable while avoiding unnecessary mobilisation of response resources for non-contact acoustic events. The correlation of sensing signals with AIS vessel data and inferred movement tracks further strengthens the analytical foundation for determining whether a detected event is associated with vessel activity that warrants closer attention.

 

Implications for Subsea Infrastructure Security

 

The Tampnet and Starboard integration represents a meaningful advance in the operational capability available for protecting subsea cable infrastructure. As the number of subsea cables continues to grow, driven by hyperscale cloud providers, telecoms operators, and offshore energy networks, and as awareness of deliberate interference risks increases, demand for robust real-time monitoring solutions is expected to expand significantly. The operational integration of multiple fiber sensing modalities with maritime AI platforms provides a scalable model for cable protection that can be deployed across a wide range of subsea cable networks, and the Tampnet deployment provides a real-world operational reference that other cable operators and infrastructure managers can evaluate. For the broader maritime security and critical infrastructure protection sector, the announcement illustrates how the convergence of existing sensing infrastructure, advanced data analytics, and maritime intelligence platforms is creating new operational capabilities without requiring wholly new physical deployments.