The SeaMeWe-6 cable has landed in the Maldives.
Maldives telco Dhiraagu, the landing partner for this portion of the cable, said it had inaugurated the cable, although it is still two years away from activation.
The 21,700km (13,500 miles) cable links France and Singapore via the Red Sea and is planned to have 17 landing points in 15 countries.
SeaMeWe-6 is expected to have a capacity of 126Tbps when operational in 2026.
“Connecting our digital network to the SMW6 submarine cable system is an important step towards establishing the Maldives as a global digital hub and increasing the resiliency of the country’s digital backbone. This access by the Maldives to key digital hubs across the world will help us to provide higher speeds of digital connectivity, reduce latency, and decrease the cost of our Internet services in the future,” said Ismail Rasheed, Dhiraagu’s CEO and managing director.
Other landing partners of the SeaMeWe-6 cable are Batelco, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, Dhiraagu, Djibouti Telecom, Microsoft, Mobily, PCCW, Singtel, Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telekom Malaysia, Telin, and Transworld.
The fiber pairs on the trunk of the cable from Bahrain to Oman - known as Al Khaleej - are fully owned by Batelco. Airtel has privately owned fiber pairs extending from Singapore to Mumbai and Chennai.
When complete, the SeaMeWe-6 cable will land in Manama, Bahrain; Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; Djibouti City, Djibouti; Port Said and Ras Ghareb, Egypt; Marseille, France; Chennai and Mumbai, India; Morib, Malaysia; Hulhumale, Maldives; Muscat, Oman; Karachi, Pakistan; Doha, Qatar; Yanbu, Saudi Arabia; Tuas, Singapore; Matara, Sri Lanka; and Abu Dhabi, UAE.
The cable was planned to include China, however, China Mobile and China Telecom both withdrew from the project in 2023 after growing tensions between the US and China.
The Maldives is currently home to the Maldives Sri Lanka Cable (MSC), FALCON, PEACE, and Dhiraagu Cable Network. The Domestic Submarine Cable of Maldives and India Asia Xpress are both set to go live later this year.
Source: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/seamewe-6-lands-in-the-maldives/