Amazon’s Project Kuiper, its low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband network, is partnering with NBN Co to bring reliable internet to rural Australia starting in mid-2026. This will give wholesale fixed broadband services to over 300,000 customers.
Unlike older satellite systems that are 36,000 kilometers above the Earth, Project Kuiper’s satellites are only a few hundred kilometers away, in roughly the same range as Starlink’s satellite grid. This means that the time it takes for data to travel between the user and the internet is much faster, which gives you a more responsive and much better online experience.
This new service will eventually replace NBN Co’s current two geostationary Sky Muster satellites. The plan is for NBN Co to maintain and run the Sky Muster satellites until the full transition to Project Kuiper is done, which could be around 2032. NBN Co is still deciding what to do with the older satellites once the transition is complete.
This is a huge deal for people in rural, regional, and remote areas of Australia, where reliable internet has always been a challenge. With this new service, those customers will get better access to remote work, online education, and all the other services that come through an internet connection.
Ellie Sweeney, Chief Executive Officer at NBN Co, said, “LEO satellite broadband, supplied by NBN Co and powered by Amazon’s Project Kuiper, will be a major leap forward for customers in parts of regional, rural and remote Australia. This important agreement will complement our other major network upgrades that have involved the rollout of full fibre services across much of our fixed line network and the deployment of the latest 5G millimetre wave technology to improve the speed and capacity of our fixed wireless network."
There’s a lot of competition in the satellite internet space. This partnership is a huge win for Amazon and a big loss for Starlink, which was also vying for the NBN contract and has been operating in Australia since 2021.
Starlink somehow lost despite having around200,000 customersin Australia and a five-year head start, so the deal with Amazon must have been pretty favorable for the country, or the technology is just that advanced. The latter seems supported by Rajeev Badyal, Vice President of Technology at Amazon’s Project Kuiper. He said, “We’ve designed Project Kuiper to be the most advanced satellite system ever built.”
Project Kuiper’s network is made up of a constellation of over 3,200 satellites. So far, Amazon hassuccessfully launched 78 satellitesacross three different launches, and the company has plans to launch more than 80 additional rockets to complete the full network. Amazon has a goal of launching about half of its full fleet by mid-2026.
The company is still trying to increase its production, processing, and launch rates, so it can get the initial service rolled out. When the full network is deployed, it will apparently be able to reach pretty much any location on the planet, including the most remote parts of Australia.
