- Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon Leo is officially scheduled to launch mid-2026
- Jassy also made some claims about Amazon Leo’s uplink and downlink performance being better than what’s currently available
- A couple of analysts sliced and diced Jassy’s comments
In his annual letter to shareholders yesterday, Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy said the company is on the verge of launching Amazon Leo, its low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite broadband service, which will compete against SpaceX’s Starlink.
He said over the last seven years, Amazon has been working on the satellite network and has put more than 200 satellites into space. This already makes it the third largest LEO network, with Starlink being the first and OneWeb being the second.
Jassy said, “While Amazon Leo is officially scheduled to launch in mid-2026, we already have meaningful revenue commitments from enterprises and governments. Most recently, Delta Airlines, the highest grossing airline in the world, has announced it’s chosen Amazon Leo for its future Wi-Fi, and will begin with 500 planes in 2028. They join other Leo customers like JetBlue, AT&T, Vodafone, NASA, and others.”
Jassy’s commitment to mid-2026 follows comments from Amazon Leo’s VP Chris Weber at the recent satellite show, who said Amazon Leo commercial service was “months away.” And Weber said initial coverage will target latitude bands in the northern and southern hemispheres, where “all of our ground infrastructure is installed and operational.” Once Amazon Leo has more satellites in orbit, then the company will start expanding coverage towards the equator.
Interestingly, Jassy said Amazon Leo’s “performance will be stronger (about six to eight times better on uplink, and two times better on downlink) than what customers have access to now.”
We can only assume that he’s referring to Starlink in terms of what customers currently have access to.
In terms of better uplink and downlink, Recon Analytics principal Roger Entner said, “They all work with the same physics. Jassy’s comments were pretty general. Against what is he comparing this? Starlink Gen 1, Gen 2 or Gen 3?”
Fierce asked Entner if it is really feasible for Amazon Leo to launch mid-2026. “I am sure he’s going to a marketing launch in mid-2026. That has nothing to do with how many satellites he has in space. I highly doubt that in mid-2026, two to three months away, his service is 6-8 times better on the uplink and 2x on the downlink compared to what Starlink has now,” he said.
Luke Pearce, principal analyst with CCS Insight, said, “Mid-2026 is ambitious but not unrealistic, although expectations should be tempered. Its near-term goal is to reach around 700 satellites by mid-2026, which would support an initial service rollout.”
But Pearce noted that 700 satellites remains well below Amazon’s original FCC deployment milestone of more than 1,600 satellites by that date. And Amazon has requested a waiver. “This highlights the execution challenges around launch cadence and access to launch capacity,” said Pearce.
He added, “Any launch in 2026 is likely to be a limited commercial service focused on selected enterprise, government and mobility customers, and in specific geographies, rather than a fully scaled global broadband offering.”
Amazon Leo is advertising peak speeds of up to 1 Gbps downlink and 400 Mbps uplink, compared to Starlink’s current peak offerings of just over 400 Mbps downlink and around 50 Mbps uplink.
But Pearce said these speeds are under the most ideal conditions. He said Amazon's claim of an uplink advantage is especially notable and likely reflects Amazon’s in-house design choices, including its ‘Ultra’ flat-panel terminal, the Prometheus baseband chip, and antenna optimization.
“That said, next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, currently in testing, are expected to significantly increase total network capacity, potentially by 10x versus V2 Mini, which should improve Starlink’s speeds when operational,” said Pearce.