Entner: Amazon’s Steep LEO Deployment Gap Needs a Waiver to Succeed

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9, 2025 — The U.S. satellite broadband market is consolidated around two low-Earth orbit providers, with Starlink holding a dominant operational lead and Amazon confronting a perhaps-too-lofty deployment benchmark that will decide whether it stays in the race.

In remaining a “challenger,” Amazon’s Leo faces an ambitious buildout plan that it won’t be able to meet without federal relief, according to a Recon Analytics report from Dec. 1.

The report, by Roger Entner, analyst and founder of Recon Analytics, drew on proprietary survey data from 2022 through November 2025 covering more than 1 million broadband customers. 

Entner said Amazon had 153 satellites in orbit and was projected to reach about 180 by year end. Its Federal Communications Commission authorization required more than 1,600 satellites by mid 2026. 

Entner said the gap made a waiver unavoidable, noting “there is no way this can be physically done” and that regulators do not want “to live in a world where Elon Musk rules the sky.”

The report said federal broadband subsidies had reinforced both LEO networks. Entner said Starlink and Amazon won more than 20 percent of all BEAD locations, placing them at the center of the country’s most remote and expensive areas to serve. He said those awards positioned the two systems as the likely high speed providers for many rural households.

Direct-to-device firms such as AST SpaceMobile advanced smartphone-based links but lacked home internet capability, limiting their competitive reach, said Entner. Satellite broadband’s appeal has narrowed as population density increased, where fixed wireless, fiber, and cable delivered higher capacity at lower cost.

Federal agencies and major carriers continued to back multiple LEO providers to avoid reliance on a single supplier. The FCC’s decision on Amazon’s waiver request would determine whether the market holds that structure as Starlink extends its lead, he said.