Pulau Perhentian Kecil, Malaysia

Pulau Perhentian Kecil: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Pulau Perhentian Kecil is a small island located off the northeastern coast of Malaysia, and it serves as a submarine cable landing point within the country's broader coastal connectivity network. One submarine cable lands here, connecting the island to the Malaysian mainland as part of a short-distance domestic link. Malaysia as a whole hosts 18 submarine cables across 16 landing points, and Pulau Perhentian Kecil represents one of the smaller nodes in that national infrastructure.

The single cable serving this landing point operates entirely within Malaysia, enabling an intra-national, inter-island corridor rather than any intercontinental or international route. This positions Pulau Perhentian Kecil as a domestically oriented landing point, focused on extending connectivity to an offshore island community rather than forming part of a long-haul transoceanic network.

Cables Landing at Pulau Perhentian Kecil

The Besut-Perhentian Islands cable is the sole submarine cable landing at Pulau Perhentian Kecil. Spanning approximately 21 km, it was ready for service in 2019 and holds draft status. The cable connects points entirely within Malaysia, linking Pulau Perhentian Kecil to the mainland district of Besut in Terengganu. As a short domestic cable, it serves the specific purpose of bridging the island to the peninsular network, providing a fixed submarine link over a modest distance.

Regional Context

Among the 16 submarine cable landing points in Malaysia, Pulau Perhentian Kecil hosts a single cable, placing it among the more lightly served nodes in the national network. Larger Malaysian landing points such as Mersing, which hosts five cables, and Cherating, Morib, Penang, and Sedili, each hosting three cables, carry considerably greater cable diversity. Pulau Perhentian Kecil nonetheless ranks within the top 63 percent of Malaysian landing points by cable count, reflecting the relatively wide distribution of small single-cable landing points across the country.

Network Role

Pulau Perhentian Kecil functions as a single-cable terminus within Malaysia's submarine cable graph. Its connection via the Besut-Perhentian Islands cable is entirely domestic in scope, providing a direct underwater link between the island and the Terengganu mainland over a distance of 21 km. This makes the landing point distinct from multi-cable hubs elsewhere in Malaysia that facilitate regional or international traffic; its role is specifically the extension of fixed connectivity to an island that would otherwise rely on alternative means of communication.

In the broader context of Malaysia's 18-cable national submarine network, Pulau Perhentian Kecil illustrates how submarine cable infrastructure is deployed not only for long-haul international purposes but also for short-range domestic island connectivity, adding a geographically isolated community to the country's fixed underwater network.