Amazon delays offering Kuiper broadband service to ’25
Though Amazon still has plans to begin launching satellites of its internet Kuiper constellation late this year, it revealed yesterday that it will now delay operational availability of the service to the public until 2025.
Amazon had earlier aimed to start deploying more than 3,200 satellites in the first half of 2024 to begin beta trials with potential customers, including Verizon in the United States. However, the company now expects to ship the first production satellites this summer to Florida for the launch with United Launch Alliance from its recently opened factory in Kirkland, Washington.
In order to offer the product to the public Amazon needs to have a certain number of satellites in orbit. Moreover, the company’s FCC license required it to launch half of this constellation by 2026, so meeting that deadline is getting increasingly difficult. Amazon has contracts to launch satellites 46 times on ULA rockets (8 on Atlas-5 and 36 on Vulcan), 27 times on Blue Origin’s New Glenn, 18 times on ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6, and 3 times on SpaceX’s Falcon-9.
By the time Amazon begins selling Kuiper, Starlink will have been available for about four years. For Amazon to grab market share will be thus difficult, unless it offers its product for significantly less.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Though Amazon still has plans to begin launching satellites of its internet Kuiper constellation late this year, it revealed yesterday that it will now delay operational availability of the service to the public until 2025.
Amazon had earlier aimed to start deploying more than 3,200 satellites in the first half of 2024 to begin beta trials with potential customers, including Verizon in the United States. However, the company now expects to ship the first production satellites this summer to Florida for the launch with United Launch Alliance from its recently opened factory in Kirkland, Washington.
In order to offer the product to the public Amazon needs to have a certain number of satellites in orbit. Moreover, the company’s FCC license required it to launch half of this constellation by 2026, so meeting that deadline is getting increasingly difficult. Amazon has contracts to launch satellites 46 times on ULA rockets (8 on Atlas-5 and 36 on Vulcan), 27 times on Blue Origin’s New Glenn, 18 times on ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6, and 3 times on SpaceX’s Falcon-9.
By the time Amazon begins selling Kuiper, Starlink will have been available for about four years. For Amazon to grab market share will be thus difficult, unless it offers its product for significantly less.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“For Amazon to grab market share will be thus difficult, unless it offers its product for significantly less.”
Or offer it as part of Amazon Prime along with the video bundle – this worked somewhat for their PrimeVideo, people who used it normally didn’t pay extra until recently.
They are in a deep hole. In 2025 SpaceX will be launching 80 or so Starlink V2 satellites on a regular basis with Starship developmental flights, and likely commercially on a bimonthly or faster cadence by 2026 I bet. And these launches will cost less, these satellites will deliver way more performance, AND they will include direct to cell phone capability.
I wish Amazon well, but do not expect Kuiper to be a serious offering for quite some time. And should they continue to delay for some reason I would support reallocating the spectrum in their license over to SpaceX instead who have proven they can actually USE it to provide service to the American people (and defense department). But that’s just me.