What comes to mind when you think of satellite internet? Personally, at a national level, I quickly think of Hispasat. But internationally, my mind goes to Starlink, the company of the almighty Elon Musk.
That, however, could change soon because Amazon doesn’t want to be left behind either. in the race for spatial connectivity. Project Kuiper is the name given to its proposal to offer fast and affordable broadband to “tens of millions of customers.”
Small antennas for everyone
Project Kuiper is Amazon’s initiative with which it intends to bring a fast broadband connection to users around the world who currently cannot access traditional terrestrial fiber and wireless connectivity solutions.
To do this, Amazon plans to deploy a total of 3,236 satellites in low earth orbit (LEO) which will be connected to a global network of antennas, fiber and ground-based Internet connection points.
The idea is to launch two satellite prototypes this year and have deployed at least half of the satellite constellation by July 2026. In fact, Amazon says it has already signed agreements with Arianespace, Blue Origin, and the United Launch Alliance for 92 rocket launches.
In addition to the terrestrial infrastructure and satellites, the third leg of the project is client terminals. That is, the antennas that users will install to receive the broadband service. There will be three modalities, all of them with a chip designed by Amazon under the code name “Prometheus”:
- An ultra-compact model that will provide speeds of up to 100Mbps.
- A standard model that will offer up to 400Mbps.
- A larger model that will deliver up to 1Gbps for business, government and telecom applications.
Amazon’s roadmap contemplates starting to offer service to the first customers at the end of 2024. Pricing hasn’t been confirmed yet, but the company has announced that the 400 Mbps model will cost less than $400.
More information and images | Amazon
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