New satellite internet by Amazon to compete with Starlink in Africa

Highlights

• Vodafone and Project Kuiper, Amazon’s Low Earth Orbit satellite (LEO) communications initiative, have partnered to use Project Kuiper’s network to extend the reach of 4G/5G services to more of their customers in Europe and Africa.
• Project Kuiper claims to connect geographically dispersed cellular antennas back to the companies’ core telecom networks. Both parties will begin deploying services in Africa and Europe as Amazon’s production satellites come online.
• That means Vodafone and Vodacom will be able to offer 4G/5G services in more locations without the time and expense of building out fiber-based or fixed wireless links back to the core networks.

Source: ABC

Our Takeaway

The Vodacom group plans to use Project Kuiper’s high-bandwidth, low-latency satellite network to bring the benefits of 4G/5G connectivity to areas that may otherwise be challenging and prohibitively expensive to serve via traditional fiber or microwave solutions. That’s the same value proposition of Starlink, the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX’s satellite internet service that has been rolled out in some African countries and is currently facing regulatory and pricing hurdles. It’s set to be an intense competition for Africa’s underserved areas although Amazon does not expect to begin beta testing Project Kuiper services with select customers till the end of 2024.