Starlink stole the spotlight in SA. Could Amazon steal the show?

Amazon has doubled the number of low-Earth orbit satellites in its constellation in about five months. While Starlink remains the clear satellite internet market leader, Amazon Leo is approaching the point at which Starlink began partial service. In South Africa, the big difference between Amazon Leo and Starlink is that Amazon has a path to market.

While Starlink remains the clear global market leader for satellite internet services, Amazon Leo has been advancing at a prodigious pace in recent months – and has identified a route to market in South Africa. For years now, South Africa has been focused intently on Starlink. The reasons are numerous and pretty obvious.

For one, the constellation is synonymous with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and is the world’s richest person. Musk has been a frequent and intense critic of the rule requiring communications licence holders in South Africa to be 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups.

While satellite internet options have existed for decades, those that beamed a signal to Earth were historically too far from Earth’s surface – usually 36 000km – which meant there was significant latency (lag) in the time it took for signals to travel between Earth and the satellite.
Starlink satellites orbit Earth at only 550km above the surface. SpaceX has in excess of
10 000 satellites as part of its satellite internet constellation, enabling it to beam high-speed, stable internet anywhere it is licensed to do so.

While most built-up areas in South Africa are already well covered by fibre or terrestrial cellular networks, many sparsely populated parts of the country are not particularly profitable for operators to connect, and may benefit from the availability of a satellite internet service such as Starlink.

Ready player two?
 

Amazon Leo has been rapidly expanding its satellite constellation since the start of the year. Its most recent launch on 2 July brought Amazon to 396 Leo satellites in orbit, ahead of its commercial service launch expected in late 2026.

Amazon says it has launched 216 satellites since February. That means it has more than doubled the size of its satellite internet constellation in around five months. Musk reportedly said Starlink needed 400 satellites to begin offering partial geographic service back in 2020.

Amazon Leo satellites orbit at 630km above Earth, which is relatively close to Starlink. Chris Weber, the vice-president of Amazon Leo business and product, said in a post on X last week that the company had made enough launches to “support continuous service across initial latitudes”.

Path to SA

Helen Kyeyune, regulatory and licensing affairs lead for Sub-Saharan Africa at Amazon Leo, said in January that the network would be ready to launch in South Africa through local licensed partners in 2026.

Kyeyune said Amazon would provide “backhaul-type services to internet service providers”.
This essentially means a local communications licence holder would use AmazonLeo satellites to provide connectivity solutions to their clients, rather than Amazonselling directly to customers.
This is also an option available to Starlink, supposing it wants to operate in South Africa in this way, but the service has not signalled a willingness to do so.

Vodacom and its controlling shareholder, Vodafone, announced a 2023 deal to use Amazon’s satellite constellation to extend their networks’ reach. In a letter published over the weekend, Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi indicated that he had met with six satellite internet companies, including Amazon Leo. An Amazon Leo representative told News24 that, at this stage, the network had no additional information to share regarding commercial service timelines or plans for South Africa.