Telstra, Optus, and TPG Telecom dominate the market, with an 80% share between them.

For a major hub of Internet traffic, Australia was surprisingly constrained when it came to cable connectivity until 2018. Its primary connectivity to the mainland US had been the Southern Cross System since 2001. Telstra's Endeavour cable linked it to Hawaii in 2008, where onwards transit to the US is connected. SEA-ME-WE-3 was Australia's only connectivity with SouthEast Asia until 2018, when the Vocus Perth Singapore cable was commissioned. That route was duplicated again in June 2019 by the SubPartners Indigo cable. The Australia-Japan Cable (AJC) linked Guam and Japan in 2001, but it's a constrained capacity consortium cable. TPG's PPC-1 cable linked Australia to Guam in 2009, but its users all purchase onwards capacity on other cables without breaking out, either to the US or to Asia. New Caledonia's Gondwana Cable, Papua New Guinea's A-PNG cable (a re-commissioned PacRIM West), and New Zealand's Tasman Global Alliance (TGA) are the only Pacific cable directly terminating in Australia.

New cables are announced to connect Australia to the world on a regular basis, and until a flurry of activity in 2018, most new projects seemed unlikely to ever complete. The completion of Hawaiki, ASC, and Indigo have changed Australia's fortunes significantly. Two likely new projects include the Coral Sea Cable System &  RTI's new Japan-Guam-Australia (JGA) cable, which will presumably interconnect with SEA-US in Guam.