Digha, India

Digha, India: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Digha is a coastal town in the Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal, India, situated at the northern end of the Bay of Bengal. As one of 26 submarine cable landing points distributed across India, Digha serves as the landing site for one international submarine cable, the India Asia Xpress (IAX). This places Digha within India's broader submarine cable geography, which spans 21 cables across its coastline.

The single cable landing at Digha connects India to a regional corridor encompassing Southeast Asian nations. Through the India Asia Xpress system, Digha participates in a network that links India with Malaysia, the Maldives, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, enabling intra-Asian and broader regional connectivity along an arc stretching from the Indian Ocean into the Strait of Malacca and beyond.

Cables Landing at Digha

The India Asia Xpress (IAX) is the sole submarine cable landing at Digha. The system spans 5,791 kilometres and reached ready-for-service (RFS) status in 2024. In addition to Digha, the IAX cable connects landing points in India, Malaysia, the Maldives, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The cable provides a direct link between the eastern coast of India and key telecommunications hubs across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean island nations of the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Regional Context

Within India's submarine cable landing point landscape, Digha is one of several single-cable locations, comparable in scale to Agatti, Amini, and Andrott, each of which also hosts one cable. The dominant landing points in India by cable count are Mumbai with 18 cables and Chennai with 9 cables, followed by Kochi with 2. Digha's single-cable status places it among the smaller nodes in India's coastal cable network, though it contributes a distinct eastern seaboard landing that differs geographically from the western and southern coast concentrations.

Network Role

Digha functions as a single-cable terminus rather than a multi-cable hub. The India Asia Xpress system it anchors establishes a direct submarine route from West Bengal's Bay of Bengal coastline to multiple Southeast Asian and Indian Ocean destinations, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. This eastern-coast landing point offers a geographically distinct entry into India's national network compared to the heavily concentrated landing activity at Mumbai and Chennai.

Within the regional submarine cable graph, Digha represents India's eastern participation in the IAX corridor, extending the country's cable-connected perimeter along a coastline that has historically hosted fewer landings than India's western and southern shores.