Amazon’s Project Kuiper reaching for the stars in Latin America

Amazon’s eagerly anticipated satellite internet service, Project Kuiper, is finally about to take off. 

The fleet of low-orbit satellites is expected to be launched by the end of this year, with the schedule brought forward from 2025 as originally planned. The commercial launch is expected to take place next year.

On the ground, the company is accelerating commercial negotiations, partnerships with telecom companies and obtaining licenses to operate in different countries, many in Latin America. Last month, Amazon announced an agreement with Vrio (which offers the DirecTV Latin America and Sky Brasil brands) for Kuiper in seven countries.

Latin America is one of the most promising areas in terms of opportunities for the company, given the need to connect huge remote and rural areas. However, by coming on to the scene later, Amazon will face the challenge of competing with low-orbit service Starlink, which has become leader of this segment in countries such as Brazil in around two years.

Bruno Henriques, Kuiper's business development head for Latin America, sat down with BNamericas to talk about the perspectives for the project.

BNamericas: The project is expected to go into commercial operation in 2025. Until then, how is the obtention of licenses going for the operations in Latin America?

Henriques: Firstly, I must say we’re very happy and motivated about this contract, this partnership with DirecTV LatAm/Sky.

Kuiper, as everyone knows, is a huge project. Launching the satellites is just one aspect of it. Obviously, it's the main one. But without the other foundational stones, we won’t be able to launch the service.

My role here in Latin America is to ensure that we have authorization to operate in these countries. This includes access to spectrum rights, licenses to operate as a broadband operator, but also having all terrestrial infrastructure.

BNamericas: As well as the gateways.

Henriques: Yes. The good news that I have is that we’ve made several advances in relation to licenses and authorizations. We already have authorizations in practically all countries covered by the agreement [with the Vrio group] for landing rights or access to spectrum use.

We’ve also made several advances to deploy the gateways. We need to install dozens of gateways in Latin American countries. 

We already have them installed in some and in others we’ve reserved sites. We can’t talk about the numbers; how many sites, how many gateways, in which countries, but I can say that we’ve made a lot of progress in this regard.

BNamericas: Will the gateways be 100% owned by Amazon, built by the company, or are you also using partners?

Henriques: It will vary from place to place, country to country. We will have greenfield gateways and will also make use of existing gateways.

BNamericas: At this first stage, the countries in Latin America that will receive Kuiper are those covered by the anchor partner, the Vrio group? 

Henriques: Correct. These are the seven countries that we announced, in which they will be our distributors. But when I talk about licensing, about terrestrial infrastructure, I'm talking about all the countries for which I'm responsible. Which is basically Latin America as a whole.

BNamericas: From Mexico to Argentina.

Henriques: Mexico is actually part of a separate operation, North America.

BNamericas: How are the negotiations going for other agreements, in addition to the one with Vrio group?

Henriques: Kuiper has several business verticals. One of the verticals we’re dealing with here, in a specific agreement with a specific company in seven countries, is the retail vertical, residential services.

But we also have enterprise, mobile and government services. 

We’re actively seeking other partners, both for other countries and for the countries in the contract, in other verticals.

BNamericas: Have other agreements been closed, or are conversations still ongoing?

Henriques: There haven’t been any other agreements closed yet. The talks are taking place. We’ve been talking to everyone, with the entire market, understanding who has synergy, who has expertise.

Amazon Kuiper is a global operator, for which we’ve sought local expertise. All to deliver the best service to our customer.

BNamericas: Are there many interested parties in government?

Henriques: We’ve talked a lot with governments, not only with regulatory authorities, but also with decision-makers regarding business opportunities.

We know that in our region, government is a big user of satellite communication. Satellites solve lots of infra-terrestrial problems that exist today in Latin America.

BNamericas: A direct competitor of yours [Starlink] has grown dramatically in a short time of operation and created a considerable shakeup to the status quo of the regional satellite internet market. Apparently, Kuiper is bringing forward the launch of satellites and its commercial operations to avoid being too far behind. Does Kuiper have any tricks up its sleeve to compete with that player?

Henriques: Here at Amazon, we usually say we’re interested in the competition, but what really matters is the customer, all customers. Those in the public sector, for emergency response, mobile services. When we focus on the customer, things happen. We’re working to please our customers.

That said, we understand that Latin America is very different to the United States and Europe. We have an accessibility and a price challenge. 

BNamericas: Will you have a more affordable service than the competition, as is being said in the market?

Henriques: Among all the competitive advantages, price is obviously going to be one of them, but just one of several. 

We already know our customers very well, so we have other competitive advantages too. We already operate in the B2C [e-commerce] market, for example, in Brazil and Mexico. In the B2B market, through AWS, we operate in practically all markets in the region.

We’re here. We know the customer and we know how to support the customer. Other companies don't know, they’re learning.

This will be a major competitive differentiator for us. We already know many of the things that need to be done to be a telecommunications operator.

BNamericas: Will you intend to obtain synergies and cross-selling between Kuiper, Amazon and AWS operations? By taking advantage of the customer base, for example?

Henriques: Correct. Amazon is a logistics, e-commerce, IT and entertainment services company. It’s a company that sells its own products. 

We have a lot of opportunity to take advantage of what Amazon already does and add more connectivity on top of it all.

BNamericas: So we can expect, say, Kuiper antennas to be sold via Amazon's e-commerce here, as Kuiper's rival is already doing with Amazon's competitor [Mercado Libre]. Would the same thing be done with AWS cloud customers for example?

Henriques: Yes. We’ve already announced that AWS is 100% natively integrated into the service. Everything that AWS customers already have and request in terms of links and connectivity in a given region, we will also offer to our customers, and we will add to the connectivity part of AWS.