What’s up with… Project Kuiper, SES, VMO2

• Project Kuiper targets early 2026 for major market launch
• SES partners for MEO, laser comms developments
• Virgin Media O2 expands its 5G SA coverage

In today’s industry news roundup: Amazon’s low-earth orbit satellite operator is set to launch services in five main markets in early 2026; satellite operator SES has forged new partnerships; UK telco Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) now has 5G standalone (5G SA) services launched to most of the UK’s population; and much more!

Project Kuiper, Amazon’s low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite operation that is aiming to compete in the satellite communications services sector with Elon Musk’s Starlink, is set to have 200 satellites in orbit by the end of this year, launch initial services before the end of 2025 and be up and running in the US, Canada, France, Germany and the UK by the end the first quarter of 2026, reports Bloomberg. The update was provided by Ricky Freeman, president of government solutions for Project Kuiper, at the World Space Business Week event in Paris on 15 September. He added that the Amazon operation is aiming to have its services available in between 88 and 100 countries by 2028. The LEO operator, which launched its first satellites into space in April this year (later than expected), currently has just over 100 satellites in orbit and eventually plans to have a constellation of 3,236 ‘birds’. Earlier this month, JetBlue was named as the first airline that will use the Kuiper constellation to offer Wi-Fi services on its aircraft, starting in 2027. 

Starlink, meanwhile, is already providing its services to more than 7 million customers in about 150 countries, it recently noted. It’s not all positive news for the company, though: It made the headlines earlier this week after an outage disrupted services, including those used by the military in Ukraine, reported Reuters.  

Luxembourg-based satellite firm SES, which earlier this year bulked up with the $2.6bn acquisition of Intelsat, has teamed up with satellite developer and builder K2 Space to “advance the development of SES’s future medium-earth orbit (MEO) network,” stated SES in this announcement. “The collaboration combines SES’s decades of experience operating global multi-orbit networks, including its O3b mPOWER MEO network, with K2 Space’s agile engineering capabilities to co-develop future network infrastructure and technologies,” it added. SES’s future MEO network will be “designed to support multi-mission capabilities, such as hosted payloads, space situational awareness, direct-to-device data relay and sovereign services, while enabling reliable communications for mobility applications and resilient enterprise backhaul,” stated the satellite operator. In July, SES reported revenues of €978m and adjusted EBITDA of €521m for the first six months of the year, with both figures down slightly compared with the same period a year earlier.  

SES has also teamed up with French firm Cailabs to test new optical ground stations that can send data from space using laser beams instead of radio waves. “By using optical communication, SES expects to be able to boost data transmission speeds, provide more secure links, and help alleviate congestion in increasingly crowded radio frequency bands,” noted the satellite operator in this announcement. It added: “The biggest challenge with optical communication to space has always been Earth’s atmosphere. Just as stars appear to twinkle due to atmospheric turbulence, laser beams wobble and break up as they pass through moving air. Cailabs solved this problem with technology called multi-plane light conversion (MPLC), which works like adaptive glasses that constantly adjust to keep the laser signal clear and strong.” Interesting stuff!

While many mobile operators are yet to flick the switch on their 5G standalone (5G SA) deployments, UK operator Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is making steady progress with its expansion following its initial launch of 5G SA-enabled services for its consumer customers (in 14 cities initially) in February 2024: It launched 5G SA services for its enterprise customers in February 2025. VMO2 now boasts it has switched on 5G SA in 500 towns and cities across the UK, covering 49 million people (about 70% of the UK population). Kester Mann, director of consumer and connectivity at research firm CCS Insight, noted: “Expanding 5G standalone coverage to 500 towns and cities is a significant milestone that will improve the mobile experience for millions of O2 customers across the UK. Not only will it support faster speeds and ensure more reliable connections but it also paves the way for the introduction of innovative services in the future, particularly for the enterprise market.” VMO2’s CTO, Jeanie York, noted: “We are investing £2m every single day to improve our mobile network and provide a more reliable experience for our customers… This customer-centric rollout is about futureproofing our network and will pave the way for exciting customer-led innovations that lie ahead.” The 5G SA rollout is part of VMO2’s Mobile Transformation Plan, which will see the operator invest approximately £700m this year as it expands its 4G and 5G coverage and deploys small cells rollout to boost capacity in dense urban areas.

Vodafone Group has used a new report, A Bridge Across Communities, to once again put pressure on European Union (EU) lawmakers. According to the report, “Europe’s entrenched digital divide – from gaps in skills and coverage to unequal access to devices and digital public services – is now a strategic vulnerability for the continent’s economy, society and democratic resilience… 44% of EU citizens lack basic digital skills, and one in five rural households still had no 5G coverage last year… failing to tackle digital transformation could cost the EU €1.3tn in lost GDP by 2033. The digital divide is a key driver of that loss, leading to digitally excluded communities experiencing poorer health, worse educational outcomes, and weaker trust in institutions.” The operator makes a number of suggestions about how this digital divide could be addressed and that GDP saved, including accelerating “the rollout of high-quality connectivity infrastructure, by unlocking the single market to create pan-European scale in critical sectors, simplifying regulation and ensuring a fair, inclusive digital ecosystem.” Or, put another way, Vodafone – along with Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and more – want the European Commission to relax its M&A regulations and allow Europe’s biggest telcos to acquire smaller players and gain greater scale. There’s no doubt that Europe’s policymakers are well aware of the telcos’ views on consolidation, harmonised spectrum licensing and other ongoing issues, but whether any action will be taken, despite recommendations such as those included in the Draghi report on Europe’s competitiveness, published a year ago, is anyone’s guess.   

Romanian internet exchange company InterLAN is to deploy Nokia’s 7750 service router (SR), 7250 interconnect router and FP5 network processor silicon “to improve its existing infrastructure” and better service its ISP customers, the vendor announced in this press release. The deployment will enable “seamless and reliable connectivity between InterLAN’s network points of presence (POPs) in four main locations spanning Romania, Bulgaria and Germany,” added Nokia.   

To mark the publication of its People and Planet Impact Report 2025, Nokia has provided an update on its own environmental efforts. “As of March 2025, Nokia has accelerated its climate drive, receiving Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) approval for its 2040 net-zero goal,” the vendor noted in this announcement. “Over the past five years, Nokia’s total greenhouse gas emissions have reduced by 36%, including a 56% reduction among final assembly suppliers and a 30% reduction in emissions from our products in use by our customers. Nokia product innovations have also become steadily more efficient, such as Nokia’s AirScale 5G massive MIMO base stations which, today, use up to 50% less energy than in 2019, and FP5 chipsets which consume up to 75% less power than the previous generation. Nokia has also made considerable progress in championing circularity in product design, so that more products can be reused, repurposed or recycled, supporting workforce well-being, as well as providing opportunities for all, through initiatives such as Smartpur and partnerships with organisations including Unicef,” it added.

– The staff, TelecomTV