Dhuvaafaru, Maldives

Dhuvaafaru, Maldives: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Dhuvaafaru is an inhabited island situated on the eastern edge of Raa Atoll in the Maldives. As an island nation composed of widely dispersed atolls, the Maldives relies on submarine cable infrastructure to maintain connectivity between its communities, and Dhuvaafaru participates in this network as a landing point for one submarine cable. That cable, the Domestic Submarine Cable of Maldives, connects Dhuvaafaru to other islands within the country, forming part of an intra-national corridor rather than an international or intercontinental link.

Dhuvaafaru's role in the Maldivian submarine cable system reflects the country's broader infrastructure pattern: the Maldives hosts ten submarine cables across seventeen landing points, and Dhuvaafaru is among those carrying a single domestic cable. The island was resettled beginning in December 2008 to house displaced residents from Kandholhudhoo who were affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, making its connectivity infrastructure part of a longer story of community rebuilding in the atoll chain.

Cables Landing at Dhuvaafaru

The Domestic Submarine Cable of Maldives (DSCoM) is the sole submarine cable landing at Dhuvaafaru. The cable has a total length of 286 kilometres and reached ready-for-service status in 2024, with its current status noted as draft. All endpoints of DSCoM are located within the Maldives, confirming its purpose as a domestic inter-island system. The cable links multiple Maldivian landing points to one another, extending connectivity across the atolls without reaching any foreign territory.

Regional Context

Within the Maldives, Dhuvaafaru ranks among the smaller cable landing points by cable count. Hulhumale leads the country with seven cables, while Eydhafushi, Hithadhoo, and Kulhudhufushi each host three. Dhangethi and Maafushi each host two cables, placing Dhuvaafaru, with its single cable, at the more limited end of the national landing point spectrum. By cable count, Dhuvaafaru ranks in the top 59 percent of the seventeen Maldivian landing points.

Network Role

Dhuvaafaru functions as a single-cable terminus on the DSCoM domestic submarine network, connecting Raa Atoll's eastern fringe to the broader intra-Maldivian cable system. Because DSCoM is an entirely domestic cable, the connectivity it delivers at Dhuvaafaru serves inter-island communication rather than international routing. The cable's 2024 RFS date makes Dhuvaafaru one of the more recently activated landing points in the national network.

In the broader graph of Maldivian submarine cable infrastructure, Dhuvaafaru represents the extension of domestic connectivity to a resettled island community in Raa Atoll. While it does not serve as a hub or multi-cable junction, its presence on DSCoM places it within a network designed to distribute connectivity across the archipelago's geographically scattered islands.