FEAR & GREED | Business News Q+A: How Amazon & NBN Co are taking on Musk's Starlink
Aug 21, 2025
Joe Lathan, Amazon's Country Manager for Project Kuiper, sheds light on an exciting partnership with NBN Co aimed at delivering high-speed satellite broadband to rural Australia. He delves into the revolutionary advancements of low Earth orbit satellite technology that promise better connectivity. Lathan discusses how this initiative could shake up the telecommunications game, challenging competitors like Starlink. Plus, there's speculation on whether Amazon will use its own rockets for satellite launches, adding a thrilling twist to their ambitious plans.
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LEO Cuts Latency, Enables Real-Time Use
- Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites cut latency from ~600ms to ~30–50ms, enabling seamless video calls and gaming for rural users.
- Project Kuiper's LEO constellation fundamentally changes what broadband services are feasible in remote Australia.
Mass Constellation Provides Continuous Coverage
- Kuiper will deploy over 3,200 satellites around 600 km above Earth to form a mesh-like constellation that travels over Australia.
- That architecture provides continuous coverage and the capacity needed for high-performance broadband.
Zoom Hill: A Farmer's Connectivity Story
- Joe Lathan described families and farmers forced to make trade-offs between online study and streaming due to poor rural bandwidth.
- He recalled a farmer naming a location 'Zoom Hill' because it was the only spot with enough signal for video calls.