Starlink, Amazon Leo and TerraWave are not the only players in this rapidly growing industry, but they stand out because of their huge financial backing and the ambitious strategic vision of their respective billionaire owners. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk oversees Starlink, while Jeff Bezos—through Amazon and Blue Origin—is developing Amazon LEO and TerraWave.
Each of these brands has taken a unique approach to building the next generation of satellite internet technology. Understanding the differences between them is important to understand how the future of global connectivity may evolve. So, without any further delay, let’s delve deeper.
Very different scales of deployment
The first thing to understand is that these networks came on the scene at different times, and their parent companies have chosen different deployment strategies. As a result, they are at different stages of development.
Starlink is by far the most mature of the three. SpaceX first entered the market with its satellite project, announcing it in 2015. Since the start of deployment in 2019, the company has rapidly built out the Starlink megaconstellation through hundreds of launches on its Falcon 9 rockets, with 9,555 Starlinks currently active and providing broadband internet to millions of people around the world.
Amazon unveiled plans to develop a competitor called Project Kuiper at the time, about a month before SpaceX launched the first batch of operational Starlinks, “but was very slow to really ramp up and start production,” Kevin Bell, senior vice president of the Engineering and Technology Group (ETG) at The Aerospace Corporation, told Gizmodo. “Some of it was satellite powered, some of it was rocket powered,” Bell said.
While SpaceX’s approach to Starlink development prioritized rapid iteration and deployment, Amazon took its time finalizing the designs of its satellites and conducted more extensive prototype testing. Since Amazon doesn’t have its own rockets to support satellite deployment, it partners with launch providers, including SpaceX, to build its constellation.
The company launched its first operational batch of satellites in April 2025 on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. The next launch, scheduled for February 12, will bring the constellation (now called Amazon LEO) to 212 satellites. Because it is still in the early days of scaling, the service has not yet launched commercially.
Then there’s TerraWave, the newcomer. Blue Origin announced the project on January 21, with a goal of starting deployment by the first quarter of 2027. The company will likely use its New Glenn rocket to launch its satellites, but this has not been confirmed yet. According to the announcement, the TerraWave constellation will eventually reach 5,408 satellites located in low-Earth orbit (where Starlink and Amazon LEO reside) and medium-Earth orbit.
That’s larger than Amazon LEO’s planned deployment of 3,236 satellites, but if Musk gets his way, Starlink will eclipse both of Bezos’ constellations. The Federal Communications Commission recently approved SpaceX’s application to launch more than one million Starlink launches for the purpose of building an orbital data center.
Serving Unique Markets
Broadly speaking, the satellite Internet industry serves two types of customers: enterprises and individual users. But according to Bell, these markets can be divided into five main segments, namely direct to device, direct to consumer, high bandwidth (for business-scale users), backhaul (providing connectivity in underserved areas), and sovereign government.
“While Starlink really spans all of them, Amazon and TerraWave have chosen to position themselves toward the higher end, at least initially,” Bell said.
Starlink actually serves a wide variety of users, from individuals to the US government. However, its primary customer base consists of people living in rural and remote areas who do not have access to reliable, high-speed Internet. Amazon Leo plans to eventually target that market, but the initial phase of its deployment will serve select enterprise, government, and telecom customers.
TerraWave is unique in that it is not tailored to individual customers at all. According to Blue Origin, the network will serve “thousands” of enterprise, data center and government users.
“One of the big differences is that, typically, an enterprise will negotiate a service level agreement — so there’s a requirement that the company be able to provide a certain level of speed, a certain level of capacity,” Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association, told Gizmodo.
To meet that demand, Blue Origin will design TeraWave to deliver data speeds of up to 6 terabits per second anywhere on Earth. By comparison, Starlink and Amazon Leo provide speeds ranging from hundreds of megabits to about 1 gigabit per second, which is suitable for individuals and some enterprise customers, but not tailored to high-capacity backhaul or large-scale enterprise operations.
As these networks grow, the satellite Internet industry is undergoing rapid change. The competition between them and their many other competitors will continue to drive innovation, bringing faster speeds, higher capacity, and wider coverage to users around the world.
“Each generation of satellites launched has greater speed and capability than the previous generation,” Stroup said. “We’re iterating faster than ever.”
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