Project Kuiper and telecommunications company Vrio Corporation have signed a strategic alliance to market Amazon’s satellite broadband network in Latin America. The e-commerce giant is taking a step forward to compete with Starlink, Elon Musk’s internet service.
The internet connection alternative will be offered through the subscription packages of the DirecTV Latin America and Sky Brasil brands, managed by Vrio Corporation. It will be available in mid-2025 for residential and corporate customers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay.
The companies did not provide details about the prices or technical characteristics of the service. They limited themselves to saying that the intention is to offer affordable, high-speed connectivity options. The proposal aims to serve nearly 382 million people, including 200 million users who live in areas that do not yet have the necessary infrastructure to access the internet.
Starlink makes the first video call through its mobile satellite network
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Darío Werthein, president of Vrio Corporation, assures that “this alliance with Project Kuiper is in line with the strategy of extending our services in South America. We are busy in reduce the technology gap. Providing internet access throughout the region guarantees the development of communities.”
The satellite network that will support the Amazon Project Kuiper service is still under development. In November of last year, the mission was launched Protoflight to test the performance of the prototypes KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2. The research team established connections lasting between 30 and 120 seconds with the system. You were able to stream a movie from Prime Video, make a purchase on-line and complete a video call remotely. The company is now building 3,326 space transmission devices that will be sent to low Earth orbit over the next two years. The first deployment is planned for the end of 2024.
Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology and head of Project Kuiper at Amazon, added that “the network has the capacity and flexibility to serve tens of millions of customers around the world. This distribution agreement is part of our commitment to work with regional providers who share that vision to serve users throughout South America.”
Amazon Project Kuiper takes on Starlink
Starlink is the main competitor that Amazon Project Kuiper will have to face in Latin America. The SpaceX-backed satellite internet service has operations in most of the region. In recent months, it arrived in Argentina and Uruguay. The launch route indicates that it will begin to market its products in Belize, Guyana, Nicaragua and Bolivia between 2024 and 2025. Despite the geographical expansion that the company has experienced, the prices of its products are high when compared to the average expense that Latin Americans allocate to obtain connection to the network through conventional systems.
The situation represents an area of opportunity for Project Kuiper’s business. Bloomberg reports that the organization made a series of strategic decisions around the design and technologies used in its network to ensure that the prices of your equipment and memberships are affordable. Naveen Kachroo, head of sales at Project Kuiper, emphasized that Amazon is looking for not only the cost of its service to be economical, but also that of the devices necessary for the operation. “We want to ensure that our proposition is widely used by as many customers as possible.”
Project Kuiper and Vrio Corporation plan the development of different antenna models that will be adapted to the particular needs of the countries in which they will offer broadband connection. They have said that their products will be charged in the local currency of each market and will offer local technical service in the customers’ language. Panos Panay, vice president senior of Amazon devices and services, said that “there are hundreds of millions of households around the world that do not have access to reliable internet, which means they cannot participate in things we take for granted. “Working with Vrio to provide affordable broadband access means we can make it easier for many more people to build, connect and learn new skills.”
