Velidhoo, Maldives

Velidhoo: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Velidhoo is an inhabited island in Noonu Atoll, an administrative division of the Maldives. As an island nation composed of widely dispersed atolls, the Maldives relies on submarine cable connections to maintain domestic telecommunications links between its many islands. Velidhoo participates in this network as a landing point for one submarine cable, the Domestic Submarine Cable of Maldives (DSCoM), which connects communities across the Maldivian archipelago.

The single cable serving Velidhoo operates entirely within Maldivian waters, enabling an inter-island corridor rather than an international or intercontinental one. This positions Velidhoo as a domestic connectivity node within the broader Maldivian submarine cable network, serving the communications needs of Noonu Atoll and the island's registered population of 1,832 as recorded in the 2022 census.

Cables Landing at Velidhoo

Domestic Submarine Cable of Maldives (DSCoM) is a 286-kilometre submarine cable with a ready-for-service year of 2024, currently in draft status. The cable connects multiple landing points entirely within the Maldives, running between various islands across the archipelago. Its endpoints are all located within Maldivian territory, making DSCoM a purely domestic system designed to improve inter-island connectivity throughout the island nation.

Regional Context

Among the 17 submarine cable landing points in the Maldives, Velidhoo ranks in the top 59 percent by cable count, hosting one cable. This places it alongside similarly sized domestic landing points such as Dhangethi and Maafushi, each of which also serve a small number of cables, while larger hubs such as Hulhumale host seven cables and Eydhafushi, Hithadhoo, and Kulhudhufushi each host three. Velidhoo's role is more modest in scale than these multi-cable landing points, reflecting its function as a local node rather than a regional aggregation point.

Network Role

Velidhoo functions as a single-cable terminus within the Maldivian domestic submarine cable network. Its sole connection, DSCoM, operates within the boundaries of the Maldives and supports inter-island communication rather than providing gateways to international cable systems. As a 286-kilometre domestic cable commissioned in 2024, DSCoM represents one of the more recent additions to a national network whose first cable entered service in 2006 and whose 10 submarine cables now span 17 landing points across the archipelago.

The Maldives' average cable length across its network stands at 2,698 kilometres, reflecting the international cables that connect the islands to the wider world; DSCoM, at 286 kilometres, is significantly shorter, underscoring its dedicated domestic purpose. In the regional submarine cable graph, Velidhoo represents the extension of structured cable infrastructure to a populated outer-atoll island, ensuring that Noonu Atoll has a direct place within the national network topology.