A subsea telecommunication system, comprising: a first acoustic modem configured to couple to a first vehicle and to communicate acoustically; a second acoustic modem configured to couple to a second vehicle and to communicate acoustically with the first acoustic modem, wherein the second vehicle is an underwater vehicle and a first computer system configured to: receive an environmental parameter, characterize a physical layer of the subsea telecommunication system in response to the environmental parameter, the physical layer comprising a noise channel and an acoustic communication channel; determine desired data delivery parameters based on an intended operation of the underwater vehicle, the data delivery parameter comprising one of latency, data fidelity, spatial resolution, and temporal resolution of different data feeds; conduct a communication performance simulation for the acoustic communication channel using the characterization of the physical layer and the desired data delivery parameters; and in response to the communication performance simulation, adjust a physical layer parameter of the subsea telecommunication system in real time, the physical layer parameter comprising one of carrier frequency, bandwidth, error correcting codes, modulation order and symbol rate. a first acoustic modem configured to couple to a first vehicle and to communicate acoustically; a second acoustic modem configured to couple to a second vehicle and to communicate acoustically with the first acoustic modem, wherein the second vehicle is an underwater vehicle and a first computer system configured to: receive an environmental parameter, characterize a physical layer of the subsea telecommunication system in response to the environmental parameter, the physical layer comprising a noise channel and an acoustic communication channel; determine desired data delivery parameters based on an intended operation of the underwater vehicle, the data delivery parameter comprising one of latency, data fidelity, spatial resolution, and temporal resolution of different data feeds; conduct a communication performance simulation for the acoustic communication channel using the characterization of the physical layer and the desired data delivery parameters; and in response to the communication performance simulation, adjust a physical layer parameter of the subsea telecommunication system in real time, the physical layer parameter comprising one of carrier frequency, bandwidth, error correcting codes, modulation order and symbol rate. receive an environmental parameter, characterize a physical layer of the subsea telecommunication system in response to the environmental parameter, the physical layer comprising a noise channel and an acoustic communication channel; determine desired data delivery parameters based on an intended operation of the underwater vehicle, the data delivery parameter comprising one of latency, data fidelity, spatial resolution, and temporal resolution of different data feeds; conduct a communication performance simulation for the acoustic communication channel using the characterization of the physical layer and the desired data delivery parameters; and in response to the communication performance simulation, adjust a physical layer parameter of the subsea telecommunication system in real time, the physical layer parameter comprising one of carrier frequency, bandwidth, error correcting codes, modulation order and symbol rate.