Amazon sends mesh WiFi to space thanks to lasers

Amazon would like to offer internet in places where this is still difficult today. To achieve this, the company will satellite network to use. In October, the first two prototype satellites took to the skies, and in mid-November Amazon revealed that all major systems were working as they should. However, there was one aspect of the satellites that the company kept secret, until not: the satellites have ‘optical inter-satellite link’ capabilities. (OISL). In other words: mesh WiFi thanks to space lasers.

Project Kuiper

The two satellites, KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, already had a lot of equipment on board. In November, they made it possible to make video calls smoothly, without delay. As part of the testing, the company logged into Amazon Prime Video and streamed the movie A Million Miles Away in 4K quality, to show exactly how fast the network is. The only disadvantage is that for the time being there are only two satellites, which means that the contact moments are always very short. Amazon wants to solve this in 2024 by sending more satellites into space.

Meshwifi met lasers

In other words: Amazon sends a Wi-Fi network into space. Now the company is proving that it will not be an ordinary satellite network: OISL makes it possible for the satellites to communicate with each other via lasers. That technology achieved speeds of 100 Gbps at a time when the two satellites were about 1,000 kilometers apart. So Amazon is not sending an ordinary WiFi network into space, but a mesh WiFi network, with lasers.

The technology builds on fiber: it also uses light to transmit signals. However, Amazon has one advantage: light moves through space much faster than through glass, making the connection faster than fiber. According to Amazon’s calculations, OISL is 30% faster than what can be achieved with fiber over the same distance on Earth. It is important that the satellites are at a constant distance from each other. These distances can be up to 2,600 kilometers, while the satellites move around the Earth at 25,000 kilometers per hour. That is also no problem for the equipment.

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