WARF connects the Maldives to the World

The US $26 million project is poised to have a wide range of far-reaching and positive societal benefits, including higher quality, lower cost for international communications and the provision of high capacity internet bandwidth for both mobile and fixed line applications.

"We are confident that the new cable will allow us to not only deliver lower cost, higher quality international access for our customers but also be able to open up a new range of innovative, smart services that will bring tremendous value to the Maldives' businesses, users and visitors alike," said Ahmad Haleem, Chairman, WARF.

WARF consists of Wataniya Telecom Maldives (65%), Reliance Communications Ltd (20%), and Focus Infocomm (15%). WARF was set up in December 2005 to construct a landing station in Male and lay a high-capacity fibre-optic cable across the Indian Ocean from Hulhumale to the Indian mainland. The cable then connects to the global FLAG (Fibre Optic Link around the Globe) backbone.

The Maldivian government supported the project to help make it a reality. The cable ends the Maldives' reliance on costly and low voice quality satellite links and also ends the international communications monopoly in the Maldives.

"The country will see a tremendous improvement in its voice and data communication services with the rest of the world, as well as lower costs, which is a new competitive edge that WARF is proudly bringing to the Maldives," ended Haleem.