Amazon Project Kuiper has achieved a transfer rate of over 1 gigabit per second via a satellite internet connection. Project manager Rajeev Badyal posted a video on LinkedIn showing a speed test that achieved a download rate of 1280 megabits per second. It remains unclear how high the upload rate is, which the company will only reveal later. However, it should be considerable.
According to Amazon, it now has over 100 satellites in orbit. More are to follow in the coming weeks and months. “With our first Amazon Project Kuiper satellites at an altitude of 630 km, we were able to put the network through its paces. Last week, our team conducted another round of speed tests with our enterprise-class customer terminal. The results speak for themselves,” Badyal commented on the clip.
Tough competition for Starlink?
The clip shows a PC running a speed test from Ookla. “As far as we know, this is the first commercial phased array antenna to deliver 1+ Gbit/s from low-Earth orbit,” says Badyal. However, what initially looks like a points victory against competitor SpaceX comes with a big but: firstly, the terminal used is not one that normal end users will use. And secondly, the test took place under laboratory conditions, as the transmission capacities will later be shared between several users in real operation.
With the standard antenna, Kuiper should later achieve a maximum download speed of 400 MBit/s – which corresponds to the value of Starlink. SpaceX is also planning to offer gigabit-speed services for corporate customers in the future. This is to be realized with the help of the V3 satellites.
Opening date for customers still unclear
It is still unclear when Amazon will open its satellite service to customers. Amazon itself considers a launch in 2025 to be possible. In an upcoming mission, 27 more satellites are to be launched into space. The US telecommunications authority, FCC, has ordered Amazon to have half of its satellites – 1618 – in operation by July 2026 and all 3236 satellites by July 2029.
(mki)
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This article was originally published in
It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication.
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