Amazon wants to buy Globalstar, the satellite company that keeps iPhones connected during emergencies. The deal could hit $9 billion. The problem is, Apple owns a chunk of it and uses most of the network to power emergency features on hundreds of millions of phones.
Globalstar’s stock jumped over 15 percent when the Financial Times broke the story on Wednesday. Shares had already doubled in the past year. After hours, they added another 24 percent.
The two companies have been talking for a while now, trying to work through the details. Apple’s stake has complicated things. Apple bought 20 percent of Globalstar last November for about $400 million. On top of that, they put up $1.1 billion upfront to help expand the satellite network.
That investment’s paid off. With Globalstar’s stock climbing, Apple’s stake is worth around $1.1 billion now. Roughly what they prepaid.
But there’s a bigger problem. Globalstar reserves 85 percent of its capacity for Apple’s Emergency SOS feature. iPhone 14 and newer models use it. The Apple Watch Ultra 3 does too. When cell towers aren’t working, messages go through Globalstar’s ground stations to emergency responders.
So if Amazon buys Globalstar, they’d own the infrastructure keeping emergency services running for Apple customers. Two rivals sharing critical infrastructure that people depend on in emergencies. Nothing like that has happened before in tech. Amazon would need some kind of agreement with Apple over sharing infrastructure and future plans.
Amazon is racing to deploy satellites
Amazon needs Globalstar to catch up in satellites. They’re building Amazon Leo, which got renamed from Project Kuiper late last year. About 200 satellites have gone up since last April. Commercial service should start later this year.
The full plan calls for a constellation of roughly 7,700 satellites. The company has missed some deployment deadlines already, though. Right now, the focus is on getting more than 3,200 satellites up. There’s a regulatory requirement to have half of them in orbit by mid-2026.
Amazon has around 212 production satellites flying as of December. Way short of the 1,600 needed by July 2026. That’s a deadline the Federal Communications Commission set. Amazon asked for more time in January.
Buying Globalstar would give Amazon things it can’t build fast. Globalstar’s got 24 satellites already up there. Ground stations spanning 24 global gateways. Licensed spectrum in over 120 countries.
The spectrum’s the big deal. It includes L-band and S-band frequencies that are tightly controlled. Getting it through a corporate deal beats waiting years for FCC auctions. Especially when you’re running behind schedule.
Amazon designed AWS and Amazon Leo to work together. Owning Globalstar’s spectrum and ground station network would take that integration a lot further.
Amazon’s already spent roughly $9 billion building its first 200-plus satellites. Buying an existing network with decades of experience makes more sense than starting from scratch. Globalstar handles voice, data, and asset tracking for government and business customers around the world. That kind of operational know-how doesn’t come overnight.
Still, Amazon’s way behind. SpaceX’s Starlink has over 10,000 satellites in orbit and more than 9 million users. Going from 200 to 10,000 satellites isn’t something spectrum deals alone can fix.
But Globalstar gives Amazon things that launching more satellites can’t. L-band and S-band diversity. Operational expertise. Infrastructure already serving customers across enterprise and government markets worldwide.
Starlink’s not slowing down either. They keep pushing beyond rural areas into suburbs and cities where they’ve got spare capacity.
Bloomberg reported last October that Globalstar looked at selling and had early talks with SpaceX. Those didn’t go anywhere. Now Amazon’s the one trying to close a deal.
Bezos eyes data centers in space
This satellite push connects to something bigger from Jeff Bezos. His space company, Blue Origin, asked the U.S. government this year for permission to launch 51,600 satellites designed to host data centers in space.
Bezos has talked about building gigawatt-scale data centers within 20 years to handle energy demands. Solar panels in orbit generate power around the clock. No clouds, rain, or nighttime getting in the way.
“Solar farms on Earth suffer from nighttime darkness, clouds, and rain,” Bezos said during a conversation with Ferrari chairman John Elkann last year. “But solar panels placed in orbit can generate continuous power 24/7.”
Steady power for energy-intensive data centers. No weather-related downtime like Earth-based solar installations deal with.
“We will be able to beat the cost of terrestrial data centres in space in the next couple of decades,” Bezos said.
Amazon and Globalstar didn’t respond to requests for comment. Amazon declined to discuss the talks.
Satellite infrastructure’s turned into a battleground for tech companies. Spectrum and orbital capacity matter as much now as server farms and fiber optic cables used to.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/amazon-wants-to-buy-the-satellites-apples-iphones-depend-on-to-compete-with-starlink/
