Amazon showed off download speeds peaking at 1.28 Gbps from its nascent Project Kuiper internet satellite service and announced an airline deal with US commercial airline JetBlue to provide Wi-Fi in the sky.
On the video posted on LinkedIn by Rajeev Badyal, head of Kuiper at Amazon, someone conducts a speed test using speedtest.net, a common ISP-testing site, which showed an average download speed of 1,189 Mbps and a peak of over 1,289 Mbps against a server hosted by Eastern Oregon Net Inc. Bear in mind that this is a staged test, presumably conducted under ideal conditions.
"With our first Amazon Project Kuiper satellites on station at 630 km, we've been able to put the network through its paces," Badyal said. "Uplink numbers generated as much excitement (if not more). We'll save those for another day though."
While it looks impressive, Amazon is very much a late arrival in the orbital ISP market. The company sent up its first commercial Kuiper satellites in April and now has just over a hundred in orbit. Compare that to Starlink, which has over 8,000 satellites in position and more going up every month.
In, we suspect, not an entirely unrelated announcement, US carrier JetBlue said today that it's adding free Kuiper internet access to its fleet, and will start installing its hardware on aircraft in 2027. Until then, it's sticking with its current provider Viasat, a spokesperson told The Register.
"With Project Kuiper, we're working to ensure you have a high-speed connectivity experience wherever you are - at home or 35,000 feet in the air," Panos Panay, the former Microsoft product chief and now Amazon devices and services senior VP, said in a canned quote.
Kuiper has said it'll start commercial services in Australia next year, although the biz told us other areas may see coverage first. Given the late start date in the JetBlue deal, it's clear Amazon chooses to be, at best, cautiously optimistic.
In the orbital ISP biz, Kuiper's coverage area is tiny, which is why the speed test is a bit of a swizz. While Starlink is the clear leader in the field - albeit offering much slower speeds than those demonstrated - Eutelsat's OneWeb is managing to keep a basic service running with just over 600 functioning satellites. So Amazon will need to deliver a lot more routers into orbit.
Quite how it'll do that is another question. Initially, the project relied on Atlas V rockets from United Launch Alliance, but those are being retired. Since then, it has gone cap in hand to rival SpaceX for Falcon 9 launches, and it also holds contracts with Arianespace for Ariane 6 missions slated to begin later this year.
Some hoped that Jeff Bezos' rocket biz Blue Origin would add a prime satellite delivery service, but progress has been glacial. While Blue Origin is great for slinging well-heeled space tourists - including his now-wife - above the Kármán Line, the New Glenn rocket, which needed to haul serious payloads only made its orbital debut in January, and pricing remains anyone's guess for Amazon's shareholders.
There's certainly money to be made from satellite broadband. Facebook tried a non-traditional internet connection with drones and Google with balloons, but orbital kit is the logical way forward.
Kuiper shows great promise, and Amazon has the funds to make up for lost time by spamming the skies with satellites; however, they get up there. But it'll need not only speed, but scale, to succeed. ®