Amazon catches up, Eutelsat colonizes Africa (politely), Starlink keeps carpet-bombing orbit
The week opened with Amazon’s constellation hitting a symbolic milestone: 150 satellites in orbit as of 14 November, according to coverage of the company’s low-Earth orbit broadband push, dubbed “Amazon LEO,” expanding its global high-speed internet reach. The announcement, dated 14 November 2025, makes clear that Amazon is no longer just flirting with LEO; this is now a real network, with the usual “bridge the digital divide” storyline as the official justification and “please don’t let Starlink eat the entire market” as the unofficial one.
From a first-order perspective, 150 satellites is still a fraction of Starlink’s orbital carpet, but it shifts Amazon from “future threat” to “operational reality” in every RFP where enterprises ask for “not just one LEO option, please.” The second-order effect is more interesting: as Amazon’s constellation grows, the multi-orbit narrative gets more leverage. Terrestrial operators and enterprise buyers can now play OneWeb/Eutelsat, Starlink, and Amazon off against one another, whether that’s for backhaul, mobility, or wholesale. In other words, the week made it that much harder for anyone to claim LEO is a one-horse race, even if one horse is still several laps ahead.
