(ECOC 2025) Exploiting Optical Data Networks for Infrastructure and Environmental supervision: Requirements, Challenges, and Progress

Optical fiber sensing on deployed cables is gaining significant interest as a means to enhance network integrity and expand environmental monitoring capabilities. To fully achieve these goals, sensing signals must coexist with data transmission. While phase and state-of-polarization analysis are promising candidates for this integration, their practical exploitation presents several challenges. Because these methods measure the integrated deformation along the entire cable, sensitivity is often limited by high environmental noise floors. Furthermore, event interpretation and localization require more sophisticated analytics than conventional distributed fiber sensing. Incorporating fiber sensing into standard network architectures also necessitates a novel telemetry management system capable of handling heterogeneous datasets, high data rates, and stringent synchronization requirements. We present progress on these aspects, based on multi-year analysis of fiber-sensing data collected in field environments. Our results confirm that integrated sensing achieves the sensitivity required to detect mid- and low-magnitude seismic events within a range of tens of kilometers from the fiber, holding the potential to support seismic monitoring services in terrestrial areas. Additionally, we demonstrate the detection and localization of anomalous vibrations and anthropogenic events and the development of an autonomous anomaly-detection tool suitable for real-time alerting. Finally, we outline the requirements for an advanced network management system designed to accommodate sensing alongside conventional telemetry, supporting the transition from proof-of-concept experiments to robust, large-scale applications.