Both Vodafone and Vodacom have plans to employ Project Kuiper’s high-bandwidth, low-latency satellite network to provide the benefits of 4G/5G connectivity to regions that may otherwise be difficult or prohibitively expensive to service via traditional fibre or microwave methods.
These regions may have previously been excluded from receiving these benefits due to their inaccessibility. Through the implementation of Project Kuiper, geographically scattered cellular antennas will be reconnected to their respective firms’ central telecom networks. Because of this, Vodafone and Vodacom will be able to provide 4G and 5G services in additional areas without incurring the time and expense of building out fibre-based or fixed wireless links back to the core networks of their respective networks.
As part of the partnership, Amazon intends to form a partnership with Vodafone in order to bring the high-speed broadband services offered by Project Kuiper to areas of the world that are now unserved or underserved. The companies are also investigating the possibility of developing new enterprise-specific offerings in order to deliver full global connectivity solutions to businesses. Some examples of these offerings include a backup service in case of unforeseen events and the extension of connectivity to remote facilities.
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Remarks from Vodafone
The Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone Group, Margherita Della Valle, made the following statement: “Vodafone’s work with Project Kuiper will provide mobile connectivity to many of the estimated 40% of the global population without internet access, supporting remote communities, their schools and businesses, the emergency services, and disaster relief. These connections will be complemented further through our own work on direct-to-smartphone satellite services.”
“Amazon is building Project Kuiper to provide fast, affordable broadband to tens of millions of customers in unserved and underserved communities, and our flexible network means we can connect places that have traditionally been difficult to reach,” said Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president for devices and services.
“Teaming with a leading international service provider like Vodafone allows us to make a bigger impact faster in closing the digital divide in Europe and Africa. Together we’ll explore how we can help our customers get the most value from expanded connectivity, particularly in areas like residential broadband, agriculture, education, healthcare, transportation, and financial services.”
“At Vodacom, our purpose is to connect for a better future, and we work every day to bring more people in Africa online,” remarked Shameel Joosub, CEO of Vodacom Group. “Collaborating with Project Kuiper gives us an exciting new path to scale our efforts, using Amazon’s satellite constellation to quickly reach more customers across the African continent.”
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The next action steps
As soon as Amazon’s production satellites go online, Vodafone, Vodacom, and Project Kuiper will begin rolling out their respective services across Africa and Europe. Before beginning to deploy production satellites in 2024, Amazon is getting ready to put two prototypes of their satellites through their paces over the next few months.
By the end of 2024, according to Amazon’s projections, the company will begin beta testing Project Kuiper services with a subset of consumers, and Vodafone and Vodacom intend to join in that testing as a result of this agreement.
