🧔♂️ A friendly human may check it before it goes live. More news here
Bezos’ Blue Origin to rival SpaceX, Amazon with TeraWave
Blue Origin, backed by Jeff Bezos, announced plans to deploy a satellite internet network called TeraWave.
The network will target enterprise, data center, and government clients, with 5,408 satellites planned for low and medium Earth orbit.
Deployment is scheduled to begin in late 2027, aiming to deliver data speeds of up to 6 terabits per second.
This positions Blue Origin to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Leo, formerly Project Kuiper.
Amazon has already launched 180 satellites since April 2024 and plans a constellation of over 3,200 satellites for commercial and government use.
Blue Origin is primarily known for its rocket launch services, including recent milestones with its New Glenn rocket.
Jeff Bezos has expressed ambitions for Blue Origin to become a significant business, potentially surpassing Amazon in size.
🔗 Source: CNBC
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
TeraWave’s biggest challenge may be securing spectrum and regulatory approvals, not launching satellites
- The 5,408-satellite TeraWave constellation, which Blue Origin said is expected to begin deployment in the fourth quarter of 2027, may be constrained by regulatory approvals that were not covered in the announcement.
- It should be verified whether the needed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approvals have been filed for or obtained for spectrum use and U.S. market access for satellite services; satellite systems are authorized and spectrum is managed by the FCC’s Space Bureau 1.
- In November 2016, SpaceX’s original Starlink filing with the FCC outlined 4,425 satellites that would use mainly Ku- and Ka-band spectrum, and later filings were shaped by spectrum fights involving Dish and Globalstar 1.
- Without details on TeraWave’s planned frequency bands plus its low Earth orbit and medium Earth orbit architecture, the schedule cannot be weighed against likely pushback.
Blue Origin’s space network could create a ground-based business opportunity
- Data center operators, colocation providers (companies that rent shared data center space), and fiber network operators can plan for more demand for ground stations.
- Large low Earth orbit/medium Earth orbit constellations need gateways worldwide to route traffic into terrestrial internet backbones, which opens up leasing plus connectivity revenue.
- Data center and network teams can track Blue Origin job posts on site acquisition, gateway engineering, and network interconnects to spot early buildout moves.
- Those hiring clues often come before formal buying and can hint at where TeraWave will start, which helps partnerships get pitched sooner.
