Amazon set to Trump Elon’s Starlink for NBN’s satellite internet replacement for regional Australia

The most remote places in Australia can get internet thanks to the Government’s investment in the NBN and specifically their Sky Muster Satellite service. With those Satellites nearing the end of their operational life NBN is set to do a deal for low-earth orbit Satellite connectivity and it appears Amazon is the front runner for the contract.

It’s being reported by the Australian Financial Review that Amazon is set to be announced as the contract winner, a huge win for the tech giant given the dominance both in space and on the ground of the StarLink service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Project Kuiper is Amazon’s long running plan to launch 3236 Satellites into low earth orbit (Around 600km from Earth), very similar to Starlink in every way. And it’s not just a maybe, Amazon has 80 rocket launches booked to deliver those Satellites into space, capable of delivering Internet speeds between 100mbps and 1GBps.

These low-earth orbit satellites are a far more suitable solution for remote internet thanks to their distance from the earth. 600km compared to the 36,000km distance the NBN Sky Muster Satellites are sitting at. That distance means lower latency and higher speeds, it’s as simple as that.

I met with Project Kuiper representatives at Amazon’s HQ in Seattle two years ago where I also saw the physical “dishes” that users would have down on earth to pickup the Kuiper signal.

Amazon plans to have three options, a 7×7 inch, 11x11inch and large 32×18 inch receiver – each offering different speed options with the smallest at 100Mbps.

Of course, the NBN deal is yet to be inked and as reported by the AFR a pending election will slow that process as the Government goes into caretaker mode. As a result we can only speculate as to the details, but it would be likely that NBN would offer a variety of service options to Australians and Australian businesses.

The Kuiper network is scheduled to be 50% complete by July of next year, with 90% of the Satellite constellation to be deployed by 2029.

NBN is losing regional customers to StarLink as usage and dependence on connectivity grows and our demand for speed increases, this is driving people to spend far more than those in metro areas so we’re hoping an NBN “LEO” option will allow people to have strong, reliable, fast but more affordable connectivity option through the government backed wholesaler.

Given the WA Election is this weekend, most pundits anticipate a Federal Election being called early next week so this NBN deal with Amazon – if true – likely won’t be inked for some time but should be operational well before the early 2030’s when those Sky Muster satellites start to degrade, or become space junk.