Male, Maldives

Malé, Maldives: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Malé is the capital of the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. As a landing point, Malé connects the Maldives to a broader network of submarine cable infrastructure spanning the Indian Ocean and the Middle East. Two submarine cables land at Malé, making it one of several landing points that together form the Maldivian submarine cable network across 17 landing points nationwide.

The two cables landing at Malé serve distinct corridors. The FALCON cable links Malé to a set of countries stretching from the Indian subcontinent through the Persian Gulf and into northeast Africa, while the Dhiraagu-SLT Submarine Cable Network provides a shorter regional connection to Sri Lanka. Together, these cables give Malé both an intercontinental reach and a direct regional link to a neighboring island nation.

Cables Landing at Malé

FALCON is a submarine cable system measuring 10,300 km in length, which reached ready-for-service (RFS) status in 2006. In addition to Malé, FALCON lands in Bahrain, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait. This makes it the longer of the two cables at this landing point and the one that connects the Maldives most directly to the Gulf region and to Egypt.

Dhiraagu-SLT Submarine Cable Network is an 850 km submarine cable that became ready for service in 2007. It connects Malé to Sri Lanka, forming a relatively short inter-island and regional link across the Indian Ocean between the two neighboring countries. It is the shorter of the two cables landing at Malé and provides direct connectivity to the Indian subcontinent's southern tip via Sri Lanka.

Regional Context

Within the Maldives, Malé hosts 2 submarine cables, placing it in the upper 76% of the country's 17 landing points by cable count. Hulhumale leads the national network with 7 cables, while Eydhafushi, Hithadhoo, and Kulhudhufushi each host 3 cables. Malé shares its 2-cable count with Dhangethi and Maafushi, positioning it as a mid-tier landing point within the domestic submarine cable landscape.

Network Role

Malé functions as a two-cable landing point that connects the Maldives in two distinct directions: westward and northward toward the Persian Gulf states and Egypt via FALCON, and eastward toward Sri Lanka via the Dhiraagu-SLT Submarine Cable Network. The FALCON cable, with its RFS year of 2006, also holds the distinction of being tied to the first submarine cable to land anywhere in the Maldives. The combination of an intercontinental cable and a shorter regional cable at a single location gives Malé a dual-corridor role that neither a purely domestic nor a purely long-haul terminal could provide on its own.

Within the broader Indian Ocean submarine cable graph, Malé's position as the Maldivian capital alongside its two-cable infrastructure places it as a recognized, if not dominant, node in the national network—one that bridges Gulf connectivity with South Asian regional links in a single landing point.