News: 0181716852

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Amazon Buys Globalstar For $10.8 Billion, Moving To Expand Its Satellite Internet Service (nytimes.com)

(Wednesday April 15, 2026 @03:00AM (BeauHD) from the mergers-and-acquisitions dept.)


Amazon is [1]buying satellite communications company Globalstar for $10.8 billion to expand its Leo satellite-internet network and compete more directly with SpaceX's Starlink. The deal also [2]includes a partnership with Apple to support satellite connectivity for iPhones and Apple Watches, with Amazon planning voice, data, and messaging services starting in 2028. The New York Times reports:

> Leo was Amazon's move to enter the market for beaming high-speed internet to the ground from orbit. That is an arena dominated by Elon Musk's SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite-internet service. Starlink, which has thousands of satellites in orbit, already serves several million customers around the world. This month, SpaceX filed to go public in what is shaping up to be one of the largest-ever initial public offerings. Mr. Musk has valued SpaceX -- which has landed contracts with federal agencies such as NASA and the Department of Defense -- at more than $1 trillion. Other companies are racing to catch up to what Mr. Musk has built for space.

>

> Globalstar, founded in 1991, is a Louisiana-based global telecommunications company. It operates networks of low-Earth orbiting satellites to provide internet connectivity to customers. Paul Jacobs, Globalstar's chief executive, said in a statement that together, the two companies "will advance innovations in digital connectivity."



[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/technology/amazon-buys-globalstar-space-internet.html

[2] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-globalstar-apple


Will they though? (Score:2)

by saloomy ( 2817221 )

> Paul Jacobs, Globalstar's chief executive, said in a statement that together, the two companies "will advance innovations in digital connectivity."

Or will they just ME ALSO what SpaceX already has achieved with global high-speed low-latency bandwidth?

Re: Will they though? (Score:2)

by FudRucker ( 866063 )

This is Amazon.com

it will be great until Amazon starts injecting advertising into people's browsers, text messages, and email, and whatever else they can adulterate with spam

Re: (Score:2)

by Archfeld ( 6757 )

damn I miss fuddrucker's. They make some of the best burgers ever....None in Az sadly...

Re: Will they though? (Score:2)

by FudRucker ( 866063 )

I am in Arizona right now camping a few miles north of phoenix, duckduckgo shows three in the Phoenix area, I usually spend the summers in the Flagstaff area and winters in the desert near Yuma

Closer to Kessler syndrome (Score:2)

by Misagon ( 1135 )

The [1]Kessler syndrome [wikipedia.org] is when the low Earth orbit is so full of fast-moving space junk that the orbit is unusable, and space travel has become too dangerous to be feasible.

This was just a theory when it was presented in 1978.

In 2009, he warned that the debris environment had already become unstable.

Since then, the number of objects in LEO has increase a lot with constellations of small communication satellites such as StarLink.

Satellites and the space station regularly have to use maneuvering thrusters to av

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

One planet is all you get.