Ithaafushi, Maldives

How the Internet Reaches Ithaafushi

Ithaafushi is a small island in the Maldives, an archipelagic nation in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives as a country relies entirely on submarine cables to carry international internet traffic, given its geographic isolation across a chain of low-lying atolls spread across hundreds of kilometres of open ocean. For Ithaafushi specifically, connectivity arrives through a single domestic submarine cable that connects it to other points within the Maldives rather than directly to international networks.

The cable serving Ithaafushi links it to Hulhumale and Maafushi — two other Maldivian islands — making this a domestic inter-island connection rather than an international submarine cable terminus. International traffic therefore reaches Ithaafushi indirectly, routing first through Hulhumale, which serves as the primary submarine cable hub in the Maldives.

The Cable Serving Ithaafushi

The Ithaafushi-Maafushi-Hulhumale cable, currently in draft status with a planned ready-for-service date of 2025, is the sole submarine cable landing at Ithaafushi. This cable runs between three Maldivian locations — Ithaafushi, Maafushi, and Hulhumale — making it a purely domestic link. It carries no direct connections to foreign countries. All international internet traffic reaching Ithaafushi transits through this cable to Hulhumale, where onward connections to the wider global internet are available via that island's broader cable infrastructure.

Regional Context

The Maldives hosts 10 submarine cables across 17 landing points, with the first international cable having entered service in 2006. Ithaafushi is one of the smaller terminuses in this national network, served by a single domestic cable. By comparison, Hulhumale — the country's dominant connectivity hub — lands 7 submarine cables, while Eydhafushi, Hithadhoo, and Kulhudhufushi each land 3 cables, offering considerably more redundancy. Ithaafushi's cable is notable as a recent addition to the national grid, extending connectivity to islands that previously had no direct submarine cable link.

What This Means for Connectivity

Because Ithaafushi is served by a single submarine cable, all of its external traffic flows through the Ithaafushi-Maafushi-Hulhumale link. Any disruption to this cable would isolate Ithaafushi from the rest of the Maldivian network and, by extension, from the global internet. The cable's traffic is inter-island in nature, connecting Ithaafushi to the domestic network rather than providing a direct path to international destinations. Onward routing to the rest of the world depends on the infrastructure at Hulhumale.

Ithaafushi's position in the Maldivian cable map illustrates a common pattern in archipelagic nations: international capacity concentrates at one or two major hubs, while outlying islands are served by shorter domestic links feeding into that central point. Understanding this topology helps explain why infrastructure investment at hub locations like Hulhumale has outsized importance for the entire national network.