Amazon's Kuiper in deal for rural cell towers in Southern Africa — A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off carrying Amazon’s two prototype relay stations for Project Kuiper, from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2023. Joe Skipper/Reuters

Amazon has partnered with Vanu, a US-based company, to deploy cellular towers in far-flung and rural parts of Southern Africa using Amazon’s Project Kuiper low-Earth orbit satellites.

The agreement between the two companies is one of the first involving Kuiper, which is planning to build a constellation of satellites to rival Starlink, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The collaboration will focus initially on Southern Africa, including South Africa, but will be expanded to the rest of the continent in time. Vanu plans to work with mobile network operators in the region to deploy low-cost mobile base stations that don’t need microwave or fibre backhaul (or even electricity).

Project Kuiper already has more than 150 satellites in space and is quickly expanding its constellation. Vanu will deploy its “coverage as a service” model, using Amazon low-latency satellite connectivity to provide mobile broadband to rural communities starting in 2026.

“Project Kuiper was created to help connect customers and communities beyond the reach of existing networks, and our backhaul solutions are an important part of that vision,” said Chris Weber, vice president of consumer and enterprise for Project Kuiper, in a statement.

“Vanu has a proven track record connecting some of the hardest-to-reach places on the planet. Using satellite-based connectivity from Amazon, they can enable mobile network operators to reach more subscribers in more places.”

“Starting in Southern Africa, Vanu and Amazon aim to demonstrate that a sustainable and scalable model for rural coverage is not only achievable, but repeatable and ready to expand,” the companies said.

Bridge

Vanu, founded in 1998, grew out of research in software radio at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It develops the Anywave Base Station, the first commercial radio access network product to simultaneously support multiple cellular radio standards on the same platform and the first US Federal Communications Commission-certified software-defined radio.

In an interview with TechCentral at the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town on Tuesday, Vanu CEO Andrew Beard said the company has worked to reduce the power consumption requirements of its base stations, allowing the sites to run on batteries. With no need for fibre or microwave backhaul, the towers can be “put anywhere in the world, provided they have a view of the sky”.