The launch of the Amazon Leo satellite Internet service in South Africa will improve Internet quality in rural areas, even if it does not deliver Starlink-level performance.
That is the view of World Wide Worx CEO and reputed technology expert Arthur Goldstuck, who spoke to MyBroadband about his expectations for the service.
Amazon Leo is set to launch locally in 2027 through a partnership with Internet service provider Herotel, which will sell the service under its upcoming Evry product portfolio.
The service has yet to go live anywhere in the world, although commercial services are expected to begin at other latitudes later in 2026.
Amazon is unlikely to catch up to Starlink in terms of network capacity and customer count anytime soon.
Starlink already has nearly 11,000 satellites in orbit and is launching around 3,000 more per year. Amazon has around 400 satellites and has nowhere near the launch capability or cadence of SpaceX.
Nonetheless, Goldstuck anticipated that Amazon Leo should provide a significant improvement over traditional satellite broadband in South Africa, merely by virtue of being a low Earth orbit (LEO) system.
LEO services have thousands of satellites operating in much lower orbits to provide faster speeds and lower latency than geostationary services, which use one or two satellites at a higher altitude.
“Its latency is roughly 20 milliseconds (ms) to 40 milliseconds versus 500ms to 600ms [of geostationary services], which makes a big difference in experience,” Goldstuck said.
“Speeds should be good enough for streaming, video calls, remote work and online learning, but performance may be uneven while Amazon expands its LEO constellation and adds capacity.”
Aside from performance expectations, many South Africans are curious about the service’s pricing, which remains to be confirmed.
Herotel CEO Van Zyl Botha has alluded to the pricing being aligned with the company’s existing fibre and fixed-wireless products.
