(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc has won approval to buy a small piece of land in New Zealand as part of its project to deliver internet from space.
Amazon will install and operate telecommunications equipment on the land, the Overseas Investment Office said Thursday in Wellington. The consent was granted in July and is for a 500-square-meter site at an undisclosed location.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper aims to offer broadband internet from a constellation of more than 3,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, providing competition for Elon Musk’s Starlink network. It anticipates launching its first satellites before the end of 2024 and plans to start the first customer tests in 2025 with a commercial service to follow later in the year.
Amazon Kuiper New Zealand has been established to carry out the local operations of Project Kuiper, the OIO said in its notice. The equipment installed on the site will be used to provide broadband services to customers in New Zealand, it said.
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