Amazon LEO's Business Strategy Versus Starlink's Residential Focus
Amazon plans to dominate the business market for LEO connectivity. Its Ultra phase array antenna in satellite field tests with corporate beta users has simultaneously clocked 1.2 gigabits down and 400 megabits up. Indeed, LEO management has publicly stated that its download performance will be 2x better than Starlink's and enjoy 6x to 8x better uplink performance. The uplink edge is essential to Amazon's strategy. While residential Internet traffic is lopsided with downloads predominating, business and network applications are often symmetric or nearly. Even Starlink's 400 megabit service requires several hours to upload large gigabyte files. Amazon is targeting mobile operators and IoT aggregation hubs for its 1 gigabit service. Mobile towers are often long distances from the nearest fibre optic network in many countries. Amazon will carry the local traffic back to the mobile operator's POP or data center. Indeed, Amazon's service is ideal for remote data center...