Amazon Jumps Into The Satellite Broadband Game

We've long noted that you wouldn't see net neutrality or privacy violations in the broadband sector if there was more competition. Historically however, entrenched companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon have spent millions upon millions of dollars preventing that from happening. They quite enjoy the current paradigm of limited competition, and with state and federal regulatory capture they face absolutely no penalty for sky high prices and abysmal service in most markets. And as the late 90s and early aughts made pretty clear, they're extremely good at crushing smaller companies that try to disrupt the space.

Enter Amazon, which is one of countless companies (including Space X) exploring the application of low-orbit satellites as a new broadband alternative. Amazon subsidiary Kuiper Systems last week filed a request with the FCC to ultimately launch 3,236 low orbit broadband satellites that would cover a sizeable portion of the globe. From the filings it's not clear if Amazon will offer these services directly to consumers, or focus more on selling connectivity to other entities:

"Amazon's satellite plan isn't solely for residential and business Internet-it's also for mobile access. In its new filings, Amazon said its network will be available to mobile operators, raising the possibility that small rural carriers could buy bandwidth from Amazon to boost coverage in areas with poor cellular access."

Ultimately, companies hope that low-orbit satellites will provide uniform connectivity with far lower latency than traditional satellite broadband, a service long ridiculed for being expensive, capped, and slow. Space X's Starlink efforts are particularly interesting, given they involve launching more than 7,800 lower orbit satellites to blanket the country will less expensive broadband. OneWeb, Telesat, and Space Norway have also received the green light from the FCC for similar, albeit less ambitious, efforts.

And while many of these efforts are interesting, it's probably wise to not get too excited. There have been numerous efforts to use satellite broadband to disrupt the telecom logjam, most of which haven't really gone anywhere:

"The history of satellite internet, however, is defined by failure, including one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in history. This was a reality Elon Musk candidly acknowledged to reporters ahead of the Starlink launch. "No one has ever succeeded in making a viable low Earth orbit communication constellation right off the bat," Musk said. "I do believe we'll be successful, but it is far from a sure thing."

And it should be pretty clear that companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast will be working tirelessly behind the scenes to throw up hurdles at every opportunity in a bid to ensure these alternatives never threaten their geographical monopolies. So while it's OK to be somewhat excited about these new efforts, you may want to temper your enthusiasm until you see a viable, working product. And oh, this is all before we get to the problems of space junk and the impact on astronomy.