Ofcom to Grant Amazon Licence for Project Kuiper LEO Broadband Satellites

The UK telecoms and media regulator, Ofcom, has today proposed to grant a UK Earth Station Network Licence (ESNL) to support Amazon’s long-in-gestation Project Kuiper, which represents their plan to launch a global mega-constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to deliver affordable ultrafast broadband and 4G/5G mobile services.

Currently, Amazon is still trailing behind established rivals such as OneWeb (Eutelsat) and Starlink (SpaceX). Nevertheless, the company already has approval to deploy and operate their own constellation of 3,232 LEO satellites as part of Project Kuiper, which will sit at an altitude of between 590km and 630km. The system can process up to 1Tbps (Terabits per second) of data traffic on each satellite, albeit shared between many users.

Each LEO is fairly small, but they make up for that in quantity, and this approach typically delivers lots of data capacity (100-400Mbps broadband speeds), as well as relatively fast latency times (often c.20-40ms) and wide global coverage. But only provided it’s all matched by plenty of Ground Stations and regulatory approvals in supporting countries, which is where Ofcom comes in for the United Kingdom.

The regulator states that they received an application from Amazon Kuiper Services Europe SARL (Project Kuiper) for a UK wireless telegraphy satellite earth station network licence (i.e. a non-geostationary orbit [NGSO] network licence) in July 2024. If approved, this would authorise Kuiper to operate user terminals in the Ka band in the UK and connect it to their satellites, which will be able to serve local homes, businesses and public sector sites.

Ofcom’s Proposal for Project Kuiper

This document sets out our initial assessment of Kuiper’s application for an NGSO network licence for its Kuiper system using Ka band frequencies between 27.5-27.8185 GHz, 28.4545-28.8265 GHz, and 29.5-30 GHz. Kuiper plans to provide satellite connectivity services to households, businesses and other potential customers in the UK.

Our preliminary view is that we will grant an NGSO network licence to Kuiper, having considered the technical coexistence and competition impacts of its NGSO system on existing and future NGSO systems and other spectrum services operating in the same frequencies.

We invite comments on Kuiper’s application and our preliminary views, as set out in this consultation, by 4 October 2024. Details of Kuiper’s application can be found under the “Applications received” section of our NGSO licensing webpage.

We will consider any responses to this consultation before reaching a final decision on whether to grant Kuiper an NGSO network licence to operate in Ka band frequencies 27.5-27.8185 GHz, 28.4545-28.8265 GHz, and 29.5-30 GHz.

Ofcom’s related consultation will remain open for feedback until 4th October 2024, although they’re highly unlikely to reject it, unless SpaceX or Eutelsat kick up an unexpected fuss about the risk of interference (that would probably only delay the outcome).

As it stands, Amazon have already launched a couple of test satellites (here) and their first production satellites are due to be carried into orbit by the end of 2024. The first commercial beta testing is thus likely to follow during the first half of 2025 (a little later than originally planned) and it will then take another 6 years to fully manufacture and launch their planned constellation, which takes us to around 2030.

Naturally, there remain plenty of concerns about all these new LEO constellations, not least from those working in observational sciences (astronomy etc.), as well as the growing risk of orbital collisions. But on the flip side, it will be good to have some more aggressive competition for SpaceX’s Starlink network, which until now has tended to dominate the direct-to-home side of LEO satellite broadband connectivity.