• AWS has announced a new private connectivity service to Project Kuiper, aimed specifically at enterprise customers.
• The feature will will allow enterprise and public sector customers to move data privately from a remote location directly into AWS without touching the public internet.
• In the future, Project Kuiper will offer similar options for moving data privately into customers’ own datacentres or other public clouds.

In October, Amazon Web Services (AWS) successfully launched the protoflight mission for Project Kuiper, which is the hyperscaler’s Low Earth Orbit satellite broadband network.

Project Kuiper is designed to help serve communities across the globe where connectivity is difficult to establish, with is also focused on assisting wide range of enterprise, telecommunications, and government customers.

Regarding the latter group, at re:Invent 2023, AWS announced that a new private connectivity service is being added to the mix for Project Kuiper. The feature, which is optional in nature, will allow enterprise and public sector customers to move data privately from a remote location directly into AWS without ever touching the public internet, according to CEO Adam Selipsky.

He added that in future, it will be able to offer similar options for moving data privately into customers’ own datacentres or other public clouds.

“Imagine the power of delivering, in very hard to reach places, the ability to access the internet with the same kind of speed and reliability that most of us take for granted every day. The possibilities for consumers are enormous, but so are the benefits to companies and governments. With Project Kuiper’s enterprise-ready private connectivity services, you will be able to move data from virtually anywhere over private, secure connections, and use these connections to reach your data in the AWS cloud,” he posited during his keynote presentation.

While the security-focused element of this new feature for enterprises is easy to understand, when it comes to the underserved communities that Project Kuiper is intended to help, AWS says the private connectivity option will give customers the flexibility to continue growing and innovating quickly while maintaining security and compliance standards.

This as remote areas may not have the necessary skillsets to manage traditional network security.

“When we begin beta testing Project Kuiper service in the second half of 2024, early partners like NTT, Verizon, and Vodafone will be among the first to participate in those pilots and experiment with private connectivity,” added AWS.

With much being made of low earth orbit satellite technology in recent years, especially as Starlink gains traction in regions across the globe, it looks like AWS is now positioning itself in the space too.