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The team behind Amazon's Project Kuiper has posted a video showing the satellite internet service delivering a 1,280Mbps download rate.
The Starlink rival has over 100 satellites in orbit, with more set to launch in the coming weeks and months. Amazon still needs to launch additional satellites to offer continuous internet service from space, but Project Kuiper Head Rajeev Badyal said his team has been testing the growing constellation’s download and upload capabilities.
The clip, taken last week, involves a PC running Ookla’s Speedtest.net, which shows the Kuiper connection topping 1 gigabit to hit a 1,289Mbps download speed. “As far as we know, this is the first commercial phased array antenna to deliver 1+ Gbps from low Earth orbit. We can’t wait to get it in the hands of our customers,” Badyal wrote on LinkedIn.
However, it’s important to note that the 1,200Mbps download rate was achieved via Kuiper’s upcoming “enterprise-grade customer terminal,” which Amazon said back in 2023 is designed to support gigabit speeds. In contrast, the standard Kuiper dish promises to offer max download speeds of 400Mbps, similar to the existing Starlink dishes from SpaceX.
The other factor is that it’s easier for Kuiper to power the gigabit speeds since the satellite internet system has yet to launch, and thus has plenty of capacity. Under real-world conditions, Kuiper will need to account for multiple customers using the satellite internet service concurrently, says Jianping Pan, a computer science professor at the University of Victoria in Canada who researches satellite internet systems.
Starlink is also preparing to offer gigabit speeds. In June, SpaceX introduced a new upgraded $1,999 dish for enterprises. Although it’s currently designed to power "400+" Mbps download rates, the dish is slated to support 1 gigabit speeds sometime next year as SpaceX works to upgrade the Starlink networking with upcoming V3 satellites.
It's unclear when Project Kuiper will start serving customers. But Amazon’s satellite internet service is already winning federal funds to deliver broadband to underserved areas in certain US states. In Wyoming, Kuiper has been tapped to deliver download speeds of at least 150Mbps.
In the meantime, Badyal says that he plans to post a video speed-testing Kuiper’s upload rates.
Disclosure: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company.