Recent public filings with the FCC from Amazon have revealed that the company is gearing up to embark on a “big, audacious space project” which will involve launching over 3,000 satellites to deliver global broadband. The filings from Project Kuiper reveal that the satellites will be placed in low Earth orbit in order to provide broadband connectivity to underserved communities.
Amazon will be putting up 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit to “provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world,” the company said in a statement provided to Geekwire. It added that these satellites will be able to provide data coverage for 95 percent of the land where the population lives. “This is a long-term project that envisions serving tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet,” the spokesperson for the company said.
The company hasn’t detailed how much this project is going to cost. It has also not said when Project Kuiper will be launched. It will likely cost Amazon billions of dollars to do this but it may also end up making billions of dollars in revenue once the satellites have gone into commercial service.
The fact that it has made filings with the FCC show that it’s actively considering the idea but it can’t be said for sure at this point in time just how long it would take for Amazon to put these satellites in orbit in order to deliver high-speed broadband across the globe.