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11:08 AM PDT · July 27, 2026
Amazon filed an exertion with the Federal Communications Commission for a licence to run a caller web of 5,105 satellites that would supply work to mobile phones, with plans to commencement launching them successful 2028.
The determination comes respective months aft Amazon acquired the outer operations of Globalstar, which provides exigency connectivity to Apple iPhones and internet-of-Things devices. The filing revealed the company’s plans to leverage Globalstar’s vigor spectrum to grow these offerings and integrate them with Leo, Amazon’s broadband net outer network.
That sets up much contention with SpaceX, which has dominated some the outer net and satellite-to-mobile services market. SpaceX volition walk $20 cardinal buying spectrum from Echostar to physique retired its mobile constellation, 1 of the cardinal maturation strategies described successful its IPO filings.
Still, it’s not yet wide however invaluable satellite-to-mobile connections volition be. Most connection constricted bandwidth, suitable lone for substance messages oregon exigency situations. The CEO of T-Mobile, which uses SpaceX satellites to connection customers outer connectivity, said this outpouring that determination wasn’t important lawsuit interest.
“Just to springiness you an example, we look astatine our information successful May, and outer usage is 0.0002% of our full web usage. That’s 3 zeros,” Srini Gopalan said at a conference successful May. “We’re seeing it mostly focused connected the nationalist parks.”
Amazon has an further challenge: It doesn’t person its ain fleet of rockets. It had planned to beryllium connected Jeff Bezos’ abstraction company, Blue Origin, to motorboat its satellites, but the company’s rocket, New Glenn, has been delayed and is present grounded pursuing an anomaly that destroyed its launch pad successful May. The institution had to petition an hold to the deadline imposed by its FCC licence to physique retired its network.
While Amazon inactive lags down SpaceX, its monolithic superior reserves — $255 cardinal successful existent assets connected the books arsenic of the extremity of April — mean that it tin support investing successful its network, portion SpaceX’s superior needs look acold much pressing.
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Tim Fernholz is simply a writer who writes astir technology, concern and nationalist policy. He has intimately covered the emergence of the backstage abstraction manufacture and is the writer of Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the New Space Race. Formerly, helium was a elder newsman astatine Quartz, the planetary concern quality site, for much than a decade, and began his vocation arsenic a governmental newsman successful Washington, D.C. You tin interaction oregon verify outreach from Tim by emailing tim.fernholz@techcrunch.com oregon via an encrypted connection to tim_fernholz.21 connected Signal.
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