Amazon has enough satellites to launch its Starlink competitor

Amazon says it now has enough satellites operating in low-Earth orbit to monitor its Starlink internet competitor. With last night’s launch, Amazon Leo is 396 of the deployed satellites, which are “enough to support continuous operations at the ground level,” said Chris Weber, VP of business and marketing for Amazon Leo. This enables the company to achieve its goals The target is “mid 2026”. of commercial availability. Don’t expect miracles on the first day.

SpaceX had its own “Better than anything beta” back in 2020 when it had about 900 satellites operating in Low-Earth orbit. At first it served a narrow group of users in the mainland US and Canada, namely he complained about frequent service interruptions and high sensitivity to obstacles, speeds between 50Mbps and 150Mbps, and latency from 20ms to 40ms. By 2022, the work area and access point were already in place very well.

Early adopters of Amazon’s Leo service can expect the same at first, with future satellite launches helping to improve performance, increase capacity, and expand global coverage.

SpaceX currently has more than 10,000 Starlink satellites in operation, providing a strong Internet on land, sea, and air in more than 160 countries. Performance varies by dish, the level of services paid, the time of day, and the location of the user, but now we are talking about 200Mbps average speed, 10Mbps to 40Mbps upload, and latency around 25ms. It will be years before Amazon can boast similar numbers as it continues to launch 3,232 Leo satellites. Right now it’s almost gone, in part because of Jeff Bezos’ try to get Blue Origin’s New Glenn reusable starting the car to work at all times.