OBSEA is an underwater cabled observatory connected with 4 km of cable to the coast of Vilanova i la Geltrú (Barcelona, Spain) and placed at a depth of 20m in a fishing protected area. Operations are done by scuba divers and small boats. A surface buoy located at 40m from the underwater unit is an extension of OBSEA working as surface platform for measuring oceanographic and environmental parameters. A Shore Station provides power (3.6kW) to feed all the devices and the fiber optic link (1Gbps) to establish communications. At the same time from land we manage alarms and data storage. With a length of 1000 meters the terrestrial cable connects the Ground Station to the Beach Manhole where the submarine cable begins its route to the node location at 4 km from the coast and 20 m depth. OBSEA has nowadays two junction boxes with a total of 16 underwater webmate connectors.

CPO is a cabled underwater observatory, operational since August 2015 in the ocean energy test site in Galway Bay (Galway Bay Marine And Renewable Energies Test Site - GB MARETS, previously known as SmartBay Marine Test and Validation Facility - SMARTBAY TDS). The observatory includes a fibre optic data and power cable and a sub-sea sensor hosting platform (node) which will be used to connect to energy conversion devices being tested at the 1/4 scale ocean energy test site. This set of equipment is being made available for projects requiring power and data connections for instrumentation underwater or at the surface. The sub-sea sensor hosting platform includes interfaces (ports) capable of providing electrical power and 2-way optical or electrical (Serial or Ethernet) high speed communications to scientific instruments from R&D projects or sensor developers; the platform includes a set of permanently deployed instruments (CTD, DO2, WQM, ADCP, HDTV, hydrophone, acoustic array).