back to article Amazon's Kuiper secures license to take on Starlink in the UK

Telecom watchdog Ofcom has granted a license application from Amazon Kuiper Services Europe for satellite connectivity in the UK. The license will allow Kuiper to operate user terminals in the Ka-band. The plan is to let homes, businesses, and public sector organizations use the Kuiper satellite constellation once it finally …

  1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Tariffs incoming.

  2. Tubz Silver badge

    Maybe of use for rural areas but at those prices/speeds, no thanks, even 4G all you can eat if you get a signal is better.

    1. AMBxx Silver badge

      Rural is what it's aimed at.

      I get 20Mb broadband and very sketchy 4G. All our mobile calls have to go over WiFi.

      5 years ago, 20Mb was great. Now, more and more websites are assuming you have more and are becoming slow. I also struggle with the dreadful 1Mb upload speed.

      Broadband contract is up in 11 months. I'm seriously considering switching to a satelite service.

      1. Lee D Silver badge

        Until 2 years ago I could only get 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up.

        And that was in a major town inside the M25.

        I used 4G instead and got about 30/10.

        I moved to a rural area (literally an AONB, SSI, etc. miles from the nearest town), and I get 75/20 and the 4G is pretty awful.

        I would have Kuiper in a heartbeat if available (same as I would have had Starlink if a certain person wasn't involved in it).

        1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
          Coat

          "A certain person"

          Bezos was stood alongside Musk with the other tech-bros at the inauguration of the orange shit-gibbon.

          Boycott them all. I've just replaced my Starlink with an ADSL service, I am not giving any more business to any American organisation until they regain sanity.

          GJC

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: " I am not giving any more business..."

            Never say never. If His excellency Emperor Trump the 1st has his way, Canada will be the 51st state, Panama the 52nd and WE will be the 53rd.

            I say that because Starmer has been so 'I must sit of this fence made of shards of glass' and has not stood up to the madman at all.

            It makes us a nice juicy target. Then Trump can turn the Highlands into one huge golf course like he wants to do with Gaza. Stay at Trump Gaza only $50000 per night.

    2. xyz Silver badge

      WTF... 120 usd pcm. You Americans are getting a right shafting. I pay 47€ a month. I thought the 120 price was for rv roaming.

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Rural US internet prices are extreme, so satellite systems can turn theirs up as far as possible. Urban US generally has reasonable cabled service at much lower prices, so people aren't interested in the service anyway. European Starlink has more competition, and the capital cost to provide a cable to most uncabled locations is lower because the distances are shorter, so they have to have lower prices in order to get any customers.

        The same pattern is visible when comparing other countries' prices. Canada and Australia get high prices as well, and the UK is not much better with a residential monthly price of £75, but France, Italy, and Spain get 40 euros, presumably because those countries have more competitive and complete terrestrial networks.

  3. snowpages
    Facepalm

    At first glance I read this as "bringing fast broadband to undeserved areas of the country."

    Harsh.

    1. Ken G Silver badge
      Trollface

      but fair.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Excuse me, please have a quiet word with this uninformed police officer.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    musktwat and bezo the orange turd sucker can both F OFF, along with zucker turd

  5. Irongut Silver badge

    Pathetically slow and overpriced

    Starlink charge 4x what my ISP does for 1/10th the bandwidth? Pathetic.

    I shouldn't be surprised from a serial underachiever like Musk. How's full self driving coming along?

    1. AMBxx Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Pathetically slow and overpriced

      On the other hand, they charge 3x what my ISP charges for 5x the bandwidth. Looking pretty good to me.

      Perhaps you're not part of the target market?

    2. Oneman2Many Bronze badge

      Re: Pathetically slow and overpriced

      Didn't take long for Musk haters

    3. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Pathetically slow and overpriced

      Shock, horror, it's not a mass-market wired ISP replacement, nor is it really supposed to be.

      It's certainly VIABLE to use it like that, but that's not the intended use-case for Starlink or Kuiper, no matter what their marketing department might say.

      1. short

        Re: Pathetically slow and overpriced

        Also, if you don't need it. please keep off it so us bumpkins can have as uncontended a service as possible, thanks!

  6. Lee D Silver badge

    Yay!

    Hurry up.

    I would have had Starlink years ago if it hadn't been associated with Musk.

    And though Bezos is also your typical billionaire (i.e. sociopath gold hoarder), at least he's not an *absolute* moron to go with it.

    I live rurally and I would use this as a lovely backup but also the MOST I can get is 75Mbps DSL. With no plans for fibre... ever... at the moment.

    1. rg287 Silver badge

      Re: Yay!

      And though Bezos is also your typical billionaire (i.e. sociopath gold hoarder), at least he's not an *absolute* moron to go with it.

      This is true. Definitely less of a moron and distinctly less white supremacy/Boerish behaviour.

      But given the way he's interfered with WaPo's editorial, he's demonstrated he can bootlick with the best of them.

      Competition is good. My parents get 5-10Mbps with almost no functional upload. Tried a 4G modem and that's got poor coverage as well. They're in a quirk where they're half a mile from a village with VDSL and now FTTH available. But for reasons history does not recall, their phone line comes from the next village over, some 3 miles away. OpenRetch are going to have to do something with their line if they want to bump off PSTN - but until they do, the only non-terrible options are:

      * Starlink

      * Found their own community ISP and lay their own fibre to an accommodating network POP (or use OneWeb for backhaul)

      * Now Kuiper

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Global warming fix?

    One of the solutions global warming that has been suggested is to put up an orbiting reflector. At the moment, it's been deemed too expensive and difficult. With yet another project with several thousand satellites, I wonder how long it will be until there are enough to do the job? That, or there won't be enough room to safely launch anything...

    1. hoola Silver badge

      Re: Global warming fix?

      I don't think the companies lobbing these swarms up actually care if they use the available orbit space or have an impact on other larger (and far more expensive/useful) payloads.

      Musk has already proved the when ESA had to move their satellite out of the way of his junk because they simply don't care. They did not answer any do the calls or anything.

      Their satellites are disposable, why should they worry about hitting a few £100m pounds worth of someone else's kit?

      1. Oneman2Many Bronze badge

        Re: Global warming fix?

        Because any collections cause more issues in debris for Starlink then anybody else.

  8. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Space war incoming

    Elongated Muskrat won't like this. Who knows, he may already have hunter-killer satellites already in orbit just to shoot down the opposition.

    Bezos and Musk are, IMHO turds of the highest pungency.

    1. R Soul Silver badge

      Re: Space war incoming

      That's unkind to turds.

  9. Ken G Silver badge
    Terminator

    Arm the satellites

    Let the best AI win.

  10. Lusty

    USD

    Why quote US prices for Starlink when the article is about the UK? UK pricing is published on their website so better to use that.

    1. Marc 13

      Re: USD

      Because "el Reg" has essentially become a west coast US publication. (with a tiny Australian contribution)

      Ask the el Reg staff these days:

      Rockall? What's that?

      Spain? Is that East Mexico?

      New York? Oh, the place that wakes up before us...

      West Coast US - yeah, that's el Reg now.

  11. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

    Nice and all that but

    Surely it would be better to encourage UK businesses to extend *good* infrastructure to areas these services target instead of flinging more money at US billionaires to damage the night skies and environment...

    1. rg287 Silver badge

      Re: Nice and all that but

      Because Tech and AI probably.

      Then they'll whinge at a lack of growth and blame millenials for not going back to the office and buying enough Pret at lunch.

    2. munnoch Silver badge

      Re: Nice and all that but

      Because the terrestrial mobile operators want to piggy back on the satellites so that they don't have to properly build out their networks. See recent Vodafone "announcement".

      1. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

        Re: Nice and all that but

        Like I said, we should be encouraging them to do it properly rather than give money to US billionaires

  12. cookiecutter

    Well...I didn't like looking at the stars anyway

    Roll on the Kessler Syndrome! The sooner the better in my opinion now. Hopefully followed by that asteroid slamming into Space KKKaren & Shiny skulls inane f grins

    If the governnent at the time (I wonder WHO it could have been?) hadn't cancelled BTs fibre roll out in the 90s so it could be sold off cheap, within 30 years every village would have been dug up now and fed with fibre..but hey ho..Market forces and all that

  13. Arty Effem

    Having a licence, does not license you to be iliterate.

    Being licensed, does not give you licence to be illiterate.

    Article author is English.

    1. Johnb89

      What good is a license in the UK?

      Indeed, if you are granted a license to do something in the UK, where that is an incorrect use of the word, is the contract valid?

      Sigh.

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