SLT inaugurates Dhiraagu - SLT submarine cable system between Maldives and Sri Lanka

Signals a new dimension in telecommunication in South Asia

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) – the country’s premier telecommunications provider is proud to announce the inauguration of the Dhiraagu - SLT optical fiber submarine cable system between Sri Lanka and the Maldives. At an investment of USD 20 million by Sri Lanka Telecom and Dhiraagu of Maldives, the cable system aims to enhance economic growth via superior telecommunications in South Asia. The project is seeking to improve trade relations and telecommunications in the entire region. 

The cable between Colombo and Male, which will span 850 kilometres at a capacity of 10 gigabits per second. It will enable Dhiraagu to be connected with the rest of the world, through Sri Lanka, and will allow for superhighway level bandwidth between Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

SLT signed a Construction and Maintenance Agreement with Dhiraagu, the national communications provider and the largest full service operator in the Maldives six months ago. It also preceded a Supply Contract Agreement with NEC of Japan, the contractor for the fibre optic cable system, to implement the construction of the cable. The state of the art submarine cable system is built and managed by the premier telecommunication operators of both the countries, Sri Lanka Telecom and Dhiraagu. SLT believes  this project signals a new dimension in telecommunications in the South Asian region.

Dhiraagu is Sri Lanka Telecom's second bilateral regional tie up on optical fibre cable systems. following the commissioning of Bhrat-Lanka optical fibre submarine cable system with BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) of India in October this year.

Commenting on the agreement CEO SLT Shoji Takahashi stated, "We already have existing submarine cable links connecting Sri Lanka to all the major countries of the world. Dhiraagu will have worldwide connectivity via Sri Lanka. While Sri Lanka Telecom can sell the capacity of the existing SEA-ME-WE 4, SEA-ME-WE 3 and Bharat-Lanka cable systems to the Maldives, the Maldives in turn can take advantage of these links to be connected to the rest of world as well as being connected to India via the Bharat-Lanka cable system.” Mr Takahashi further added “Sri Lanka Telecom can also connect the Maldives to SLTNet, Sri Lanka Telecom’s Internet Service Provider (ISP), with a complete range of Internet related services."

SLT recently incorporated its fully owned subsidiary in Hong Kong, Hong Kong which is fully geared to provide services such as IP transit, IPVPN, IPSL and International voice traffic transit services to global telecom operators and corporates in Hong Kong. 

As part of its ongoing initiatives of SLT to going global, SLT Hong Kong Limited will aim to become an important point of presence of SLT connecting Asia with the rest of the world through Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka – Maldives bilateral optical fibre submarine cable system will be an added strength to SLT’s point of presence in Hong Kong and will be a step forward for SLT to become a regional telecommunication facilitator along with SLT’s high bandwidth global connectivity via SEA-ME-WE 3 and SEA-ME-WE 4 (South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe).

SLT is currently in the process of evolving its telecommunication network to an NGN [Next Generation Networks] on IP-MPLS technology using optical fibre backbone which will enable SLT to provide multiple services on one network.