Amazon is planning to launch a satellite broadband service in Britain. According to a Daily Telegraph report, Project Kuiper, the company’s satellite division is planning to provide Internet access via space as early as this year.
The venture hopes to initially target businesses and government contracts.
In a regulatory filing, Amazon said that it would be seeking increased access to the country’s radio waves “over the next one or two years” as it “expands the capabilities of its first-generation system”, resulting in Internet traffic being beamed from space to satellite dishes back on Earth.
The company said Kuiper was “uniquely suited to reach hard-to-serve areas within the UK”, adding that its network could help “close the digital divide” in rural areas not served by fast fixed line or mobile broadband.
Amazon said in its Ofcom submission that it was also looking at building ground-based hubs to support its network, known as “gateways”, which are needed to connect satellites to the Internet and improve speeds.
The company said that it’s planning its first launches in the opening months of 2025, with its commercial service ramping up by the end of the year.
In the filing, Amazon, which is already a major supplier to the state through its Amazon Web Services data arm, said that it planned to serve customers “ranging from individual consumers, business and various branches of the UK government”.
Amazon applied to Ofcom in September for a licence for services in the UK.
Rival company Starlink already has 87,000 customers in Britain who are connected to its satellite broadband network.