Written by Ray Le Maistre
- Amazon is one of a throng of companies building low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations
- The satellites will provide broadband connectivity to remote areas
- Vodafone aims to use Amazon’s Kuiper constellation for cell site backhaul connectivity in Africa and Europe
Amazon’s low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite efforts have been given a boost by Vodafone and its majority-owned subsidiary Vodacom, which plan to use the big tech giant’s $10bn Project Kuiper constellation to backhaul data traffic from remote 4G and 5G mobile sites in Africa and Europe.
As part of the move, Vodafone and Amazon have forged a “strategic collaboration” that will, the companies say, enable Vodafone and Vodacom to extend the coverage of their 4G and 5G services, as the Project Kuiper satellites will be able to provide connections between the operators’ backbone data networks and core network platforms and mobile sites in areas where it is either too challenging or uneconomic to enable backhaul connections using microwave links or fibre lines.
Vodafone didn’t mention any particular markets where Project Kuiper connectivity might initially be used, but a spokesman for the company told TelecomTV that the initial focus will be on providing backhaul connectivity in Africa and “back-up/resilience” links for sites in Europe.
