Maldives
Maldives connects to the global internet through a small number of submarine cables crossing the Indian Ocean, with its dispersed island geography shaping both routing options and the resilience of its connectivity.
Connectivity at a glance
- Cable systems
- 3active
- Landing points
- 0
- Resilience score
- 27
Cable systems serving Maldives
| Cable | Status | Ready for service | Length | Design capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PEACE Cable | active | 10 November 2022 | — | Up to 24 Tbit/s (per fiber pair) |
| DDSCN | active | — | — | — |
| DSCS | active | — | — | — |
Landing points
Landing point records for Maldives are being compiled.
A scattered archipelago on the cable map
Stretching across nearly 900 kilometres of the central Indian Ocean, Maldives presents an unusual connectivity challenge. The country comprises more than a thousand coral islands grouped into atolls, yet its population and economic activity are concentrated on a handful of islands — chief among them the capital, Malé. That geography means submarine cable infrastructure must serve an effectively point-like demand centre surrounded by open ocean, with no overland routing options whatsoever.
Cables in service
Three submarine cable systems are recorded as active serving Maldives: DDSCN, DSCS, and the PEACE Cable, which entered service in 2022. Length and capacity figures for DDSCN and DSCS are not yet documented in this register; the PEACE Cable is a more recent addition to the country's connectivity mix, forming part of a broader system linking Asia, East Africa and Europe through the Indian Ocean.
What the cable mix implies
With three active systems on record, Maldives has moved beyond dependence on a single cable — a meaningful shift for any island nation. A single-cable topology leaves a country exposed to outages from fishing activity, anchor strikes, or seabed movement; the presence of multiple systems provides at least the basis for route diversity. Whether that diversity translates into genuine resilience depends on factors not yet fully documented here, including whether the cables share common landing infrastructure or converge on the same beach manhole, which can neutralise the protection that multiple systems would otherwise offer.
The PEACE Cable's inclusion adds a pathway with different ownership and routing compared with the older systems, which generally improves the practical redundancy available to Maldivian operators.
Geography as constraint
The Indian Ocean location that makes Maldives a transit consideration for cables running between Asia and Africa also means that most systems passing nearby are optimised for long-haul traffic rather than local drop points. Securing a landing on an atoll nation requires deliberate investment — the shallow reef environments and dispersed island chains complicate both the physical landing and the backhaul distribution of capacity once it comes ashore.
Landing point data for Maldives is not yet confirmed in this register. As documentation is compiled, the picture of how capacity is distributed across the islands — and how exposed individual cable stations may be — will become clearer.