Website Availability in Australia
Submarine cables, ISP health and blocking risks that decide whether a website loads in Australia. Checked against live measurement data.
Wondering whether a website is down for everyone or just unreachable from Australia? The answer usually hides in the physical layer of the internet. Australia 🇦🇺 connects to the global network through 33 submarine cable systems that come ashore at 27 landing stations, and its national domain zone is .au. Every request from a user in Australia to a foreign server, and every request from abroad to a site hosted in Australia, physically travels over these systems or their terrestrial backhaul.
This page summarizes what our measurement network knows about internet connectivity in Australia: which cables serve the country, how its leading internet providers are performing, and what can make a website appear offline for users there while it works everywhere else.
Current connectivity status in Australia
As of our latest hourly measurement cycle, the national internet signal of Australia is operating normally (BGP visibility and active probing dip: 0% against the 24-hour baseline). National-level signals catch large events; an individual website can still be unreachable for local reasons, which is what the availability checker above is for.
Connectivity for most users in Australia is provided by a small group of networks:
| Provider | ASN | Share of users | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASN-TELSTRA - Telstra Limited | AS1221 | 41.4% | No recent anomaly |
| MPX-AS - Microplex PTY LTD | AS4804 | 18.1% | No recent anomaly |
| TPG-INTERNET-AP - TPG Telecom Limited | AS7545 | 14.4% | No recent anomaly |
| WIDEBAND-AS-AP - Aussie Broadband | AS4764 | 5.7% | No recent anomaly |
| VOCUS-RETAIL-AU - Vocus Retail | AS9443 | 5% | No recent anomaly |
If a website fails to load only for customers of one of these providers, the problem is almost always local: DNS resolution inside that network, ISP-level filtering, or a routing issue, rather than the website itself being down.
Submarine cables that connect Australia to the internet
The following systems land in Australia. Cable length is a rough proxy for how much of the world a system reaches: long trunks connect continents, short ones link neighbors. Our monitors registered 4 latency anomalies on cables serving Australia in the last 30 days.
| Cable system | Length | In service since |
|---|---|---|
| Project Waterworth | 50,000 km | n/a |
| Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) | 30,500 km | 2000 |
| Asia Connect Cable-1 (ACC-1) | 19,000 km | 2028 |
| Honomoana | 15,215 km | 2026 |
| Hawaiki | 14,000 km | 2018 |
| Southern Cross NEXT | 13,700 km | 2022 |
| APX East | 13,000 km | 2028 |
| Australia-Japan Cable (AJC) | 12,700 km | 2001 |
| Oman Australia Cable (OAC) | 11,000 km | 2022 |
| Hawaiki Nui 1 | 10,000 km | 2027 |
| Telstra Endeavour | 9,125 km | 2008 |
| Japan-Guam-Australia South (JGA-S) | 7,081 km | 2020 |
Plus 21 more systems, mostly regional links. Live health data for every cable is available on the linked pages.
How resilient is Australia to cable failures?
With 33 cable systems across 27 landing stations, Australia has one of the most redundant internet connections in the world. Traffic can reroute across many independent systems, so a single cable fault rarely affects end users. Repairs at sea typically take one to several weeks, because a specialized cable ship has to locate the fault, lift the cable and splice it on deck.
Why a website may not load in Australia
When a site works in other countries but fails in Australia, the usual suspects are, in order of likelihood: a DNS problem inside a local ISP, a content delivery network misrouting users in Australia to an unhealthy edge node, a routing or peering issue between local networks and the site's host, and finally a submarine cable incident affecting the whole region.
Our DNS measurements have not flagged systematic national filtering in Australia, although individual ISPs and corporate networks can still block specific resources.
Neighbors on the same cables
These countries share submarine cable systems with Australia, so a major cable incident can affect them together:
🇺🇸 United States (9 shared) · 🇮🇩 Indonesia (4 shared) · 🇸🇬 Singapore (4 shared) · 🇿🇦 South Africa (2 shared) · 🇵🇭 Philippines (1 shared) · 🇮🇳 India (1 shared)
See the full list on the website availability by country hub.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check if a website is down in Australia?
Enter the URL into the free Global Availability Checker on this site. It compares measurement data from 80+ countries, including probes relevant to Australia, and shows in seconds whether the site is down everywhere or only unreachable from specific regions.
How many submarine cables connect Australia?
Australia is served by 33 submarine cable systems landing at 27 coastal stations. The longest systems are Project Waterworth, Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN), Asia Connect Cable-1 (ACC-1).
Why does a website work in other countries but not in Australia?
The most common causes are DNS failures inside a local ISP, CDN edge problems, routing issues between Australia and the hosting network, national filtering, and submarine cable faults. Testing the URL from multiple countries immediately narrows down which one it is.
Who are the largest internet providers in Australia?
The leading networks by user share are ASN-TELSTRA - Telstra Limited, MPX-AS - Microplex PTY LTD, TPG-INTERNET-AP - TPG Telecom Limited. Together they carry the majority of consumer traffic, so a problem inside any of them affects a large share of users in Australia.
Can a single cable failure disconnect Australia?
No. With 33 independent cable systems, traffic reroutes automatically around a single fault.
Does Australia block websites?
We have not detected systematic national filtering in Australia, but individual ISPs and corporate networks can still block specific sites.
Data: GeoCables submarine cable telemetry, RIPE Atlas measurements, IODA national signals, APNIC user estimates. Numbers refresh automatically; last update July 11, 2026.