Brisbane, Australia – SUBCO today announced the successful completion of the final splice on SMAP, its 5,000 km Sydney–Melbourne–Adelaide–Perth hypercable, marking the transition from active marine construction to ready for end-to-end testing and commissioning.

The splice, completed in Victorian waters off the Surf Coast between the two Torquay branching units, closes out the wet plant construction phase on a project that will deliver the single greatest transcontinental capacity upgrade Australia has seen in almost 25 years.

With all 16 fibre pairs now connected across the full route, SUBCO’s engineering and operations teams will turn their focus to system acceptance testing as SMAP enters its final stretch before Ready for Service (RFS).

“The final splice on SMAP is a moment I’m incredibly proud of. Since 2020, we have been strongly advocating that Australia has an outsized role to play as a secure connectivity hub for the Indo-Pacific region and we’ve been investing heavily to make that vision a reality. This project has been one of the most complex subsea cable programmes ever undertaken in Australia, and getting to this point is a testament to the extraordinary effort of our team and the confidence our customers have placed in us,” said Bevan Slattery, Founder & Co-CEO of SUBCO.

Once live, SMAP will deliver more than 400 Tbps of capacity across Australia’s domestic connectivity market for the first time – connecting the nation’s four major cities via a single, fully armoured, high-capacity subsea system. SMAP will provide genuine diversity and resilience across the Sydney–Perth corridor.

The final splice follows a series of major programme milestones, including all 59 repeaters deployed, all four cable landings completed, and terrestrial backhaul commissioned across the route. For subsea programmes of this complexity, the splice marks the definitive point at which SMAP transitions from a construction project into an operational asset, clearing the path to RFS.

The final splice announcement is the latest in a series of strategic updates from SUBCO. Earlier this month, the company announced the expansion of its Australian footprint with diverse inter-capital path capability, including two geographically independent routes on the Sydney–Melbourne corridor, along with new data centre access points across all four major capital cities.

SUBCO also announced APX East, a new express hypercable connecting Australia directly to the mainland United States, with RFS targeted for Q4 2028. APX East will be the first subsea system to deliver non-stop connectivity between the two nations without intermediate landing or regeneration, and the first international cable to land north of Sydney’s existing cable protection zone, further enhancing geographic diversity and network resilience.