Buenos Aires – Vrio Corporationthe parent company of DIRECTV Latin America and Sky Brazilsigned an agreement this week to market in South America the services it will offer Project Kuiperthe network of satellite broadband low Earth orbit being developed by the American technology giant Amazon (AMZN). The service will be available in the southern hemisphere initially in Argentina and Chiliand then in Australia and New Zealand. The satellite deployment process is expected to begin in late 2024Amazon told Bloomberg Línea.
Vriobased in the United States and part of the Werthein Group from Argentina, plans to distribute Project Kuiper to residential and corporate customers also in Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, and will offer the service as part of packages of the DIRECTV Latin America and Sky Brasil brandsin accordance with the regulations of each country.
SEE MORE: Amazon’s spending on artificial intelligence is paying off
Vrio sales teams will begin selling the service in mid-2025according to holding company sources.
Although the companies They did not provide information regarding prices, profitability, or download speedsthey assured that their objective is offer affordable, high-speed service to a potential clientele of 383 million people, including approximately 200 million people in rural areas who today have access to the internet.
“From day one, we have designed [el servicio] with affordability in mind… [y] We have made many decisions, design and technological, so that we can control the cost of the service“, said in conversation with Bloomberg Línea from Seattle, the head of sales of Project Kuiper, Naveen Kachroo.
The executive added that Amazon aims to “let it not be [económico] not only the cost of the service, but also the cost of the equipment” to “make sure that our services are widely used by as many customers as possible”.
SEE MORE: Amazon’s Twitch begins competing with TikTok in short-form videos
Competition and revenue outlook
The main competition of Project Kuiper and Vrio in South America will be starlinkthe satellite internet company founded by the South African and American tycoon, Elon Musk. That company began marketing its services in Argentina at the beginning of the year, and currently charges ARS$499,999 (US$382 in the CCL dollar) for the equipment and a monthly fee of ARS$62,500 (US$48).
Dario Wertheinholder of Werthein Grouppointed out to this medium that “for Vrio [el internet satelital de Kuiper] It’s going to be a very big part of our revenue stream going forward.”.
“Direct portability and rapid deployment will be the key factors for Latin America,” Werthein added, adding: “We are not going to say the price; “We will do it once we reach the launch date, to be more precise.”
However, The group emphasized that the service will be charged in the local currency of each country, and not in dollars., unlike what Starlink does today. In addition, they will offer local technical service and in the customers’ language.
SEE MORE: Exclusive: Asian fund with US$2,000M joins Grupo Werthein to invest in Argentina and Latam
Dario Werthein and Naveen Kachroo
In that sense, he stressed that as they will launch Kuiper in different countries, they will have “different models” for each of them and that they will do “whatever is necessary so that the client has the best product on the market.” ““It is going to be a highly valued product and it is going to be a success.”he added.
Unlike what is currently happening with Starlink, which is marketed through different marketing channels. e-commerce, Kuiper will be sold in an initial stage exclusively by the Sky and DirecTV brands.
“At the moment, We have a special relationship and we are going to market the product through Sky and DirecTV. And then we will see how the market goes and then we will expand”Werthein said.
Regarding the challenge of penetrating a segment of the South American population that has never had access to the internet, the Argentine highlighted: “We have to go through the jungle and the mountains everywhere, and there we will have a great advantage. Targeting all these 200 million people who do not have connectivity is a huge task for both of us.”.
X-ray of satellite internet in South America
According to the estimates made by Amazon’s Kachroo, Today “perhaps there are a few million” South Americans who have contracted satellite internet services.
“Geostationary satellite technologies have traditionally not been a great customer experience, and have been very expensive“, he stated, while noting that “The experience has not been comparable to terrestrial connectivity, so adoption has been quite low.”
For this reason, Amazon is in the process of building “this next generation system, which uses low Earth orbit satellites”.
In the constellation that will unfold Project Kuiper—will launch 3,326 satellites over the next two years— Satellites fly very close to the Earth’s surface and enable a low-latency broadband experience that looks and feels like terrestrial technology to the customer, the executive explained from Seattle.
“Any application will load in real time, also video, for school, for business“, already “an affordable price”, he added.
Kuiper’s progress to date and Vrio’s investment
Kachroo He highlighted that Project Kuiper “is a big project for Amazon, a very big infrastructure project.” In that sense, he said that the company founded by Jeff Bezos has publicly announced that it has invested US$10 billion just to acquire the capacity to launch satellites that will make up the constellation.
“So far, we have launched two satellites, proto-flight… and we had a very successful mission. We tested all the systems, the payload, the optical payload, the RF payload, the end-to-end network,” the executive said, adding: “Now we are going to dismantle those two satellites… and we have started to build satellites on the ground. We will begin production satellite deployments in the fourth quarter of 2024.”
“It’s a huge amount of investment as a company to build this global network, because we want to serve customers everywhere.. And then obviously there will be this incremental regional cost to establish services and sell them,” she closed.
For his part, Werthein also pointed out that marketing the service will require “a very large investment”.
“It is very important to change the region to complement the offer we have today of television, OTT and fiber. To be able to have this system, this capacity, is an important investment and a change for our company in the future,” he concluded.
Vrio currently has 40 million customers in 11 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
