Amazon Will Launch 3000+ Satellites To Offer High Speed Internet In India; Threat For Airtel, Jio?

Amazon is working on bringing high-speed satellite internet services to India, joining the race and competing against Bharti-backed One-Web and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Read on to find out all the details about Amazon’s plans about introducing its own internet services!

Amazon To Introduce High Speed Satellite Internet Services To India

The global e-commerce giant is planning to start working on introducing high-speed satellite internet services to India. For this, Amazon is planning to approach the government in order to deal with the various factors that play a part in internet services, such as modalities, authorisations, permits, landing rights and satellite bandwidth leasing costs. 

They will also require landing rights in order to downlink signals of foreign satellites into the country, which will be granted by the Department of Space (DoS) .

As per these sources, “Talks with the DoS and Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will happen on the necessary regulatory approvals to bring Amazon’s high-speed broadband services to India via its Project Kuiper satellite constellation as part of the global launch.”

Some of the major competitors of Amazon will be One Web, by Bharti Airtel, SpaceX by Elon Musk, and Jio’s internet services.

Amazon To Invest More Than $10 Billion To Build A Constellation Of LEO Satellites

As per sources close to the development, Amazon will be investing more than $10 billion in order to build a constellation of 3,236 low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites as a part of its global space internet initiative, Project Kuiper. However, its plans for India havent been disclosed yet.

However, Amazon’s spokesperson has declined to comment about the entire deal. 

There have been reports that the Bharti Group-backed OneWeb is raising $550 million (Rs 4,103 crore approx) by selling a 24% stake to French satellite operator, Eutelsat Communications. Also, just two days ago, we reported to you that the next batch of 36 satellites has been launched by Bharti Global-backed OneWeb, which is a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications operator.

These were launched by Arianespace from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia.

Additionally, the American aerospace company SpaceX has gotten approval to deploy over 2000 Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit, by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

On April 28, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, United States.

FCC has approved SpaceX to deploy 2,824 satellites at a lower earth orbit, as part of its Starlink project, to deliver high speed broadband internet to untethered regions.