The government-invested India Asia Express (IAX) submarine cable has been laid in Hulhumale' and connected to the cable landing site.
IAX is a submarine cable network between Marseille, France and Singapore by India's Geo Telecom.
The OCM-IAX cable was connected to the Maldives by 100 percent state-owned Ocean Connect Maldives (OCM) and Indian telecom company Geo Telecom. The cable connection work was officially launched at a ceremony held in Hulhumale' on Friday.
The investment was made under the government's Digital Maldives policy and aims to reduce the price and speed of internet services.
Speaking at the launching ceremony, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih said the submarine cable will transform the economy, especially the technology industry.
President Solih.
"With this submarine cable, we are embarking on a journey to a whole new world. This is not just about communication. The horizons of the digital world are much wider than that," he said.
Solih said that although the world has made great strides in technology and communication over the past 80 years, the people of Maldives still have a long way to go to reach the maximum benefits of new technologies.
"Connecting to our cable network will reduce the cost of service. Then people will be able to get internet service at cheaper rates and twice as fast," he stated.
Economic Minister Fayyaz Ismail said the government should have control over the internet provision infrastructure.
"It was noted that the government should have the independence of [Internet] infrastructure. In the future, the Internet is very much linked to our security and economy," he said.
Launching event.
The study also found that internet service providers in Maldives have to spend a lot of money to purchase the service, he added.
Fayyaz said the new cable will reduce the cost of buying internet for Dhiraagu and Ooredoo from foreign service providers by 50 percent.
The IAX cable operations were launched in February last year. The 19,200-km cable network will connect Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in addition to Maldives.
