Amazon Preparing to Offer Home Internet

stinger608

stinger608

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Looks as though Amazon is trying to have system much like Musk and launch a bunch of low level satellites in order to offer home internet.

https://cordcuttersnews.com/amazons-new-home-internet-service-gets-fcc-approval/

For years now, Amazon has been working to offer a home internet service to its customers. With this, Amazon wants to join SpaceX as an option for Americans looking for high-speed internet against companies like Comcast, Spectrum, and more.
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The FCC has approved Amazon to launch it's satellites:

In October of 2022, Amazon announced their Project Kuiper would launch more than 3,000 satellites into low-earth orbit to offer this home internet service. Now the FCC has approved Amazon’s request to launch 3,236 satellites into orbit. This gives Amazon the green light to prepare to start selling home internet.
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And, much like Starlink, this is targeting rural Americans:

Even though this service is targeting more rural Americans, this could be huge news for cord cutters if Amazon is able to follow through on their plans. Studies have shown that as more options for home internet come, online pricing has come down, and data caps have gone away.
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jfreund said:
Who will be the first to complain that more satellites will be in orbit?
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I mean, space junk is a legitimate problem :p
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So, a little bit of a question on this.

Last year few of us are camping waaaaaaay up north in the middle of freaking nowhere. Nearest "town" is like 40m away. So we're by the lake around 11pm at the campfire looking at the stars. Milky Way is crystal clear. No light pollution. I catch a glimpse of these....satellites? Maybe? Looked like meteors, but they were in perfect sequential order. One, right after another. They'd blip then disappear. There had to be forty of them. Could those have been the internet satellites? we were trying to figure that out.
 
Westwood said:
So, a little bit of a question on this.

Last year few of us are camping waaaaaaay up north in the middle of freaking nowhere. Nearest "town" is like 40m away. So we're by the lake around 11pm at the campfire looking at the stars. Milky Way is crystal clear. No light pollution. I catch a glimpse of these....satellites? Maybe? Looked like meteors, but they were in perfect sequential order. One, right after another. They'd blip then disappear. There had to be forty of them. Could those have been the internet satellites? we were trying to figure that out.
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What you describe certainly sounds most like a Starlink launch that hasn't dispersed yet.
 
1_rick said:
What you describe certainly sounds most like a Starlink launch that hasn't dispersed yet.
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yup, saw this a year or two ago while watching a Christmas parade. Turned out to be Starlink satellites in formation after a recent deployment.
 
ah, that makes sense then. the group wasn't the....techiest of them all, so they had no idea what it was about. they were thinking missiles or something. XD
 
I wonder how far this is going to go? I mean what's to stop, Cox, Comcast, Centurylink, etc from throwing up a few thousand satellites to compete? How many can we realistically shoot up there before it becomes an actual problem? We're going to Dyson Sphere our planet under satellites! :LOL:
 
Shotglass01 said:
I wonder how far this is going to go? I mean what's to stop, Cox, Comcast, Centurylink, etc from throwing up a few thousand satellites to compete? How many can we realistically shoot up there before it becomes an actual problem? We're going to Dyson Sphere our planet under satellites! :LOL:
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I'm waiting for this,

200c2330-fabc-44a6-9b3c-46d697498aae.jpg


via satellites and images of Coca-Cola and Verizon.
 
vegeta535 said:
Any government that would ok this needs to be hung. I live outside Baltimore city and the light pollution is insane as is. It is like dusk all night where I live and I hate it.
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I give it fifteen years. Within fifteen years, this will be a thing.
 
vegeta535 said:
Any government that would ok this needs to be hung. I live outside Baltimore city and the light pollution is insane as is. It is like dusk all night where I live and I hate it.
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I mean we already have giant bright animated billboards on the freeways. I could also see night time sky ads being a thing down the road. Anywhere someone can make money it will be so. :(
 
Darunion said:
I could also see night time sky ads being a thing down the road.
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I feel like that's a bridge too far, and it'd be cause for having people anonymously explain to the ad projectors what they're doing wrong.
 
Westwood said:
So, a little bit of a question on this.

Last year few of us are camping waaaaaaay up north in the middle of freaking nowhere. Nearest "town" is like 40m away. So we're by the lake around 11pm at the campfire looking at the stars. Milky Way is crystal clear. No light pollution. I catch a glimpse of these....satellites? Maybe? Looked like meteors, but they were in perfect sequential order. One, right after another. They'd blip then disappear. There had to be forty of them. Could those have been the internet satellites? we were trying to figure that out.
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We get them overhead and the locals here aren't happy because it's "ruining the night view" those are the Starlink Satellites.
 
Darunion said:
I mean we already have giant bright animated billboards on the freeways. I could also see night time sky ads being a thing down the road. Anywhere someone can make money it will be so. :(
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There is huge Natty boh neon sign I can see from my back porch looking down into Baltimore city 😟
 
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vegeta535 said:
There is huge Natty bo neon sign I can see from my back porch looking down into Baltimore city 😟
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ewww. Im lucky where i am at there arent any (for now). But the main freeway by me has a huge one with white background light and flashing blue logo (cant remember what). And I get the blimp flying around now and then with its ad banners.
 
Studies have shown that as more options for home internet come online, pricing has come down
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Yea, well that's the way the market is supposed to work, but everywhere my family members & I have lived in the past few years, internet service has only increased in price, most of the time by a significant amount, not decreased... therefore I'm callin BS on this statement :(

As for da Zon offering service, they might as well, since they already have their hands in just about everything else, unfortunately....
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I mean, space junk is a legitimate problem :p
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Actually, space junk isn't as big of an issue at these orbital altitudes. The orbit that Starlink Satellites use (approx 340 miles up) is actually low enough that there is still some very very thin atmosphere up there. Like the International Space Station (which is also in a very low orbit), they require constant boosts in order to maintain their orbits. Starlink satellites only have an average lifespan of about 5 years before they no longer have enough fuel to boost themselves, and re-enter the atmosphere at that point.

Where "space junk" is the biggest issue is Geosynchronous orbit, which is over 22,000 miles away from earth. This is a popular orbit altitude because the time to orbit earth perfectly matches the rotation of the earth, so the satellites remain over the exact same spot on the ground. This is where most TV and communication satellites are located, since you can simply aim a traditional dish at one location in the sky. But since this orbit is so high, objects in this orbit will remain in orbit for thousands of years... Most western countries maintain good practices and will move their satellites out into a "graveyard orbit", away from Geosynchronous orbit, once the satellite nears the end of it's life, but other countries such as China simply don't give a shit. Sometimes satellites also fail before they are able to move out to a graveyard orbit.
 
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GotNoRice said:
Actually, space junk isn't as big of an issue at these orbital altitudes. The orbit that Starlink Satellites use (approx 340 miles up) is actually low enough that there is still some very very thin atmosphere up there. Like the International Space Station (which is also in a very low orbit), they require constant boosts in order to maintain their orbits. Starlink satellites only have an average lifespan of about 5 years before they no longer have enough fuel to boost themselves, and re-enter the atmosphere at that point.

Where "space junk" is the biggest issue is Geosynchronous orbit, which is over 22,000 miles away from earth. This is a popular orbit altitude because the time to orbit earth perfectly matches the rotation of the earth, so the satellites remain over the exact same spot on the ground. This is where most TV and communication satellites are located, since you can simply aim a traditional dish at one location in the sky. But since this orbit is so high, objects in this orbit will remain in orbit for thousands of years... Most western countries maintain good practices and will move their satellites out into a "graveyard orbit", away from Geosynchronous orbit, once the satellite nears the end of it's life, but other countries such as China simply don't give a shit. Sometimes satellites also fail before they are able to move out to a graveyard orbit.
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Appreciate the info.

While I understand the theory, I was unaware of the implementation details of SpaceX's satellites.
 
Shotglass01 said:
I wonder how far this is going to go? I mean what's to stop, Cox, Comcast, Centurylink, etc from throwing up a few thousand satellites to compete? How many can we realistically shoot up there before it becomes an actual problem? We're going to Dyson Sphere our planet under satellites! :LOL:
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Cable and other hard line telecom companies make insane margins in most areas because they're essentially government enforced monopolies most places. Satellite internet isn't nearly as high margin and it would kill their profits.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few other companies do it though. Google and facebook have shown interest in being ISPs. Maybe Apple, Microsoft or other huge tech companies like that.
 
Being currently on Starlink, I was excited that I could get something better than 5/1 DSL (on a good day). A month after I got it I was hit with a price increase and caps. That rubbed me wrong. If Kupier has a more affordable price point with no caps, I may be inclined to try them out. Otherwise, Starlink is all I can get.
 
SunnyD said:
A month after I got it I was hit with a price increase and caps.
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It's a soft-cap at least. It's not like most other ISPs that start charging you more once you go over the cap. Instead, your data simple gets a lower priority. Unfortunately it's unknown exactly how that will impact service in practice.

I think it's going to be a while until the new Amazon satellite internet becomes anywhere near as viable as Starlink. Starlink was able to launch a LOT of satellites in a fairly short period of time due to being part of SpaceX. Amazon will be forced to pay other companies to launch it's satellites.
 
Probably one of their employees will steal your credit card info like how they steal your your items out of your packages, no thanks.
 
GotNoRice said:
It's a soft-cap at least. It's not like most other ISPs that start charging you more once you go over the cap. Instead, your data simple gets a lower priority. Unfortunately it's unknown exactly how that will impact service in practice.

I think it's going to be a while until the new Amazon satellite internet becomes anywhere near as viable as Starlink. Starlink was able to launch a LOT of satellites in a fairly short period of time due to being part of SpaceX. Amazon will be forced to pay other companies to launch it's satellites.
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Until April. Then it's a hard cap.
 
sharknice said:
they're essentially government enforced monopolies most places.
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They haven't really been government enforced in decades. It's just really expensive to build a network to most homes in an area and it's hard to make an ROI when most homes are already covered by telco and cableco and aren't really willing to pay more for better service. Especially because if there's wind of better service coming, the telco and cableco have ways to make service better. (All the cities that Google anounced they were expanding fiber to now have excellent service, but Google didn't make any real rogress towards actually running fiber).

My hope is these LEO internet services give the telco and cablecos the kick in the pants they need to roll out better service. OTOH, it could be the kick in the pants to get out of the business. CenturyLink sold half of its local phone and internet business to a leveraged buyout firm, and LBOs tend to go bankrupt in 10ish years. So, we'll see, I guess.
 
SunnyD said:
Until April. Then it's a hard cap.
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Nope. No additional fees will be charged for going over the cap. Your data will simply be de-prioritized. Supposedly this will put you in the same category as those who have signed up for "best-effort" service, and those people seem pretty satisfied, so I don't think it will be too bad.

https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1134-82708-70
Each Service Plan is allocated a certain amount data for “Priority Access” each month. Priority Access data is given precedent over the “Basic Access” data in the Starlink network. See Starlink Specifications for details on Starlink expected performance per Service Plan. After your Priority Access is exhausted, you will continue to have an unlimited amount of Basic Access for the remainder of your billing cycle.
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I'm on the Starlink Reddit every day, which is all over this stuff, but if you have something that says otherwise, please post it here.
 
GotNoRice said:
Nope. No additional fees will be charged for going over the cap. Your data will simply be de-prioritized. Supposedly this will put you in the same category as those who have signed up for "best-effort" service, and those people seem pretty satisfied, so I don't think it will be too bad.

https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1134-82708-70


I'm on the Starlink Reddit every day, which is all over this stuff, but if you have something that says otherwise, please post it here.
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It's still a hard cap. Anything that alters your service after a certain threshold in my opinion is a hard cap. I won't bother quibbling over terminology here. But when "best effort" in many cases (especially with Starlink) will be nigh unusable, it's effectively a hard cap.
 
SunnyD said:
It's still a hard cap. Anything that alters your service after a certain threshold in my opinion is a hard cap. I won't bother quibbling over terminology here. But when "best effort" in many cases (especially with Starlink) will be nigh unusable, it's effectively a hard cap.
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Best effort tier is still better than some DSL offerings. You may not want to "bother quibbling over terminology", but, the terminology matters a lot.
 
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