Amazon’s unproven Project Kuiper satellites will be put to work next year, supplying internet access to rural Australians. The retail giant announced an agreement with Australia’s state-owned National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) on Tuesday to provide satellite internet to more than 300,000 eligible customers across the country by mid-2026.
“Australia’s vast geography presents unique connectivity challenges that traditional infrastructure often can’t overcome,” Joe Lathan, Project Kuiper’s manager for Australia and New Zealand, said in the press release. “This partnership with NBN Co represents our commitment to solving these challenges through innovation and collaboration.”
This is the first major partnership announced for Project Kuiper, Amazon’s attempt to take on SpaceX’s Starlink service. While the latter already has more than 8,000 satellites in orbit, providing service to more than 100 countries, Project Kuiper is barely out of the gate by comparison, with 78 satellites launched to date. Amazon’s next launch is scheduled for August 7th as it continues to build a planned constellation of 3,236 satellites.
The NBN Co partnership may not be the first Project Kuiper service to launch, however. Amazon’s website says it expects to begin “delivering service to customers in late 2025,” though the company hasn’t yet revealed where, or how much the service and consumer hardware will cost.
