Amazon plans to launch its first satellite broadband service, Project Kuiper, in Earth’s low orbit in an attempt to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink satellite broadband.
Amazon has planned to launch 3,236 such satellites and has pre-sold 100 satellite broadband services in testing in television blackspots in the US.
Project Kuiper will apparently offer internet services with latency as good as traditional broadband from “later this year”.
Amazon has not revealed the pricing, but it is expected to compete with the $99 per month charge for SpaceX’s Starlink service and will come with an antenna andWi-Fi router.
Amazon has spent over 1bnontheproject,andplanstoselltheterminalsforlessthan400 each.
Project Kuiper will use 80 launch missions to place its satellites in LEO.