{"id":17307,"date":"2023-03-14T19:34:25","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T11:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/open-for-business-amazon-shows-off-antennas-for-its-kuiper-satellite-network\/"},"modified":"2023-03-14T19:34:25","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T11:34:25","slug":"open-for-business-amazon-shows-off-antennas-for-its-kuiper-satellite-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/open-for-business-amazon-shows-off-antennas-for-its-kuiper-satellite-network\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Open for business\u2019: Amazon shows off antennas for its Kuiper satellite network"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amazon\u2019s Dave Limp compares the size of the smallest Kuiper antenna, at right, to a Kindle ebook, at left. (Satellite 2023 via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After years of development, Amazon is showing off the antennas it plans to use for its Project Kuiper satellite broadband network \u2014 and says it plans to begin offering beta service for large customers next year.<\/p>\n

The largest antenna, for enterprise customers, is about the size of a caf\u00e9 table. The antenna designed for home use is as big as an LP record\u2019s album sleeve and should cost around $400 to make. The smallest antenna, still under development, is just a little bigger than an ebook reader.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be remiss if I didn\u2019t contrast it to a Kindle here,\u201d said Dave Limp, Amazon\u2019s senior vice president of devices and services, who helpfully made the comparison today during the big reveal at the Satellite 2023 conference in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Amazon hasn\u2019t yet launched any of the 3,236 satellites for the constellation it plans to operate in low Earth orbit \u2014 and it\u2019s far behind SpaceX, which says it already has more than a million customers for its Starlink broadband service. But Limp insisted that Amazon was in position to make rapid progress over the next year.<\/p>\n

He noted that the first two prototype Kuiper satellites have just been shipped to Florida, in preparation for launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket this spring. And he said multiple satellites should be ready for liftoff by next year. The Kuiper operation is headquartered in Redmond, Wash. \u2014 not far from SpaceX\u2019s satellite factory \u2014 and Amazon plans to start mass-producing satellites at a factory in Kirkland, Wash., by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Limp said Amazon was on track to launch half of the satellites for the Kuiper constellation by mid-2026, using up to 77 medium- to heavy-lift rockets it\u2019s reserved at ULA as well as at Arianespace and Blue Origin. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin as a separate, privately held space venture.)<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure we will be beta-testing with large customers in \u201924,\u201d Limp said.<\/p>\n

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Amazon\u2019s standard customer terminal can be mounted on a roof. (Amazon Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a sense, Limp\u2019s fireside chat at Satellite 2023 was a coming-out party for Amazon\u2019s Kuiper plans. \u201cWe haven\u2019t been able to say this for the last four years, but you can kind of consider us open for business,\u201d he told the industry crowd.<\/p>\n

In a blog posting, Amazon laid out the details for its satellite terminals. The standard customer antenna will be less than 11 inches square and 1 inch thick. It\u2019ll weigh less than 5 pounds without its mounting bracket, but should be capable of delivering network speeds of up to 400 megabits per second. The anticipated manufacturing cost? Less than $400 per terminal. Starlink\u2019s terminals currently sell for $599.<\/p>\n

Kuiper\u2019s largest antenna \u2014 meant for enterprise, government and telecommunications applications \u2014 will measure 19 by 30 inches and deliver speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, Amazon says.<\/p>\n

The smallest terminal is still under development. \u201cThe team didn\u2019t want to do this, but we\u2019re going to do it anyway,\u201d Limp joked as he pulled a prototype out of an Amazon shipping envelope. That ultra-compact terminal will weigh a pound, offer speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, and cost less than the standard model.<\/p>\n

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Amazon\u2019s ultra-compact Kuiper satellite terminal will provide low-cost connectivity. (Amazon Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Amazon\u2019s largest Kuiper terminal is designed for enterprise and government customers. (Amazon Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Amazon\u2019s Dave Limp shows off two Kuiper antennas. (Satellite 2023 via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like SpaceX, Amazon aims to provide high-speed internet service to potentially hundreds of millions of people who are underserved in the U.S. and around the world.<\/p>\n

When Limp was asked how Amazon planned to differentiate its Kuiper service from SpaceX\u2019s Starlink, he pointed to Amazon\u2019s track record of networking prowess (through Amazon Web Services), customer service and the ability to drive down costs at scale.<\/p>\n

He also talked up an Amazon-designed processing chip called Prometheus, which will be incorporated into all of Kuiper\u2019s networking equipment.<\/p>\n

Prometheus is said to combine the processing power of a 5G modem chip, the capability of a cellular base station to handle massive data traffic flows, and the ability of a microwave backhaul antenna to support point-to-point connections. The chip should make it possible for Kuiper\u2019s satellites and ground gateways to process up to a terabit of data per second.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is as close to magic as I know,\u201d Limp said.<\/p>\n

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Amazon\u2019s Prometheus processing chip was developed in-house. (Amazon Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Amazon\u2019s business model for Kuiper draws upon synergies with the company\u2019s other market offerings, including AWS\u2019 relationships with companies that rely on broadband networking. Limp pointed out that networking is becoming increasingly cloud-centric, which plays to AWS\u2019 and Kuiper\u2019s strengths.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs workloads move up into the cloud, they\u2019ll be in data centers, and Amazon has a large number of those,\u201d he said. \u201cBy having those workloads close to the Kuiper network, we can [provide] more performance. So if it\u2019s streaming a movie from Netflix, or it\u2019s getting Salesforce data from your enterprise, those workloads are often closely aligned to Amazon Web Services. And our network is going to be substantially the same as what that is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazon has committed more than $10 billion to Project Kuiper over the coming years, and intends to make a profit when the network is complete. But Limp said Project Kuiper was about doing good as well as building a good business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see the Venn diagram overlapping between a good business and something that\u2019s good for society, it puts a smile on your face,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think this is a similar kind of business. We have, obviously, a lot to prove out in the next few years. But if we\u2019re successful, it can be a very good large business for Amazon. And I think it can change a lot of consumers\u2019 lives. It can make enterprises more productive, and it can help governments in many different ways. So I think that makes me just in my happy place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon\u2019s Dave Limp compares the size of the smallest Kuiper antenna, at right, to a Kindle ebook, at left. (Satellite 2023 via YouTube) After years of development, Amazon is showing off the antennas it plans to use for its Project Kuiper satellite broadband network \u2014 and says it plans to begin offering beta service for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[275,962,20,4336,4590,442],"class_list":["post-17307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amazon","tag-project-kuiper","tag-satellite","tag-satellite-broadband","tag-satellite-conference","tag-satellites"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}