GoKawiilOn Tuesday, Amazon announced it would be acquiring Globalstar, a company that manufactures and operates low-Earth-orbit satellites with the spectrums needed to communicate with devices on the ground. Amazon also says it is partnering with Apple, which has relied on Globalstar to provide off-grid emergency communication features on devices like its iPhone and Apple Watch.
The $11.57 billion deal is Amazon’s latest effort to take on Elon Musk’s Starlink. It comes at a time when satellite internet is becoming critical to the spread of AI tech, but it also adds to concerns about what happens when our orbit fills up with junk.
Here’s what to know about the Amazon deal.
Why Did Amazon Buy Globalstar?
Amazon started aiming to fill the sky with satellites in earnest in 2023, when it launched its first satellite for Project Kuiper. Amazon is now developing those efforts under the name Project Leo (LEO is an industry acronym for low-Earth-orbit satellites). The goal is to eventually build out a fleet of thousands of satellites that can keep people connected just about anywhere they go, filling the gap between terrestrial cell networks.
As Amazon put it in its press release, “The complete Amazon Leo network will include thousands of advanced satellites in low Earth orbit and have enough capacity to support hundreds of millions of customer endpoints around the world.”
Globalstar is a small company in the satellite space, with around 24 satellites currently in orbit. What opportunity it offers Amazon is a more robust network of GPS asset-tracking tech—ideal for tracking packages or delivery vehicles. Amazon will also control Globalstar's licensed access to wireless spectrums that enable signals to be sent from a satellite “direct-to-device.” This will likely give Amazon the ability to launch satellites that connect directly to devices sooner, rather than having to go through its own country-by-country approval process.
“It's tapping into this package of already preapproved global spectrum rights, and that is then feeding into a giant for cell phones,” says Aparna Venkatesan, an astronomy professor at the University of San Francisco. “It's going to get connected to this huge iPhone market. So I think that's a very compelling business package for Amazon and Apple.”
Apple isn't the only company offering emergency SOS features via satellite. Google and Samsung both offer the capability on their respective smartphones, and these features are only expected to grow in the coming years.
What Does Direct-to-Device Mean?
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