Amazon, the US giant already blamed for gutting Australian retail revenues and jobs, now wants to dominate the skies above Australia, with a fresh application to launch more than 5,000 satellites that threatens to upend carriers, smartphone manufacturers and pay TV operators, while the Federally owned NBN emerges as a key partner set to benefit from the expansion.

The company’s Amazon Leo operation last week asked the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to launch up to 5,105 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites from 2028, a direct-to-device (D2D) constellation designed to beam voice, messaging and data straight to standard smartphones, no dish, no cell tower, no carrier required.

For Australian businesses the implications are stark.

Telstra, Optus and TPG face disintermediation at the network edge, Samsung and the Android camp face a forced choice over who controls their connectivity roadmap, and the DAZN-owned Foxtel, which relies on satellite communication to run its business, is also exposed especially as the Amazon owned Prime Video is pitching for Australian sports content as was revealed during the recent NRL broadcast negotiations.

Amazon is one of the few companies in the world that can afford to place risky bets of this scale, and if it succeeds, the fallout, like AI, could put tens of thousands of Australian jobs at risk.

The Globalstar Deal That Changed The Game

What makes the Australian threat real is Amazon’s $11.6 billion move on Globalstar, announced in April 2026 and set to close in 2027. The deal hands Amazon globally licensed L-band and S-band spectrum, the essential ingredient for connecting standard smartphones directly to satellites.

Crucially, unlike Starlink, which depends on carrier partnerships such as Telstra and Optus to leverage terrestrial spectrum, Globalstar’s globally authorised mobile satellite spectrum gives Amazon a faster, more controlled path to direct-to-device services, which in future could be sold direct to consumers via Amazon’s own trading sites.

Analysts say spectrum and D2D were the two structural gaps that made Leo look like broadband with ambition rather than a full connectivity play. Amazon can now deliver both.

The deal also locks in Apple. Globalstar powers Apple’s Emergency SOS, and rather than disrupting that arrangement Amazon has taken it over and extended it, securing one of the world’s most valuable consumer hardware platforms as a Leo anchor partner from day one. Apple gets a larger, financially stable partner, but the iPhone maker’s satellite roadmap now runs through an Amazon company.

Samsung and the Android brands face a harder choice, Starlink’s D2D, AST SpaceMobile, or Amazon, and whoever they pick controls a growing share of the connectivity experience on their devices.

NBN In Bed With Amazon

Sitting in the middle of all this is NBN Co. Last year NBN Co and Amazon announced an eight-year agreement to deliver high-speed wholesale broadband to regional, rural and remote Australia, covering more than 300,000 premises within NBN’s existing satellite footprint and progressively replacing the ageing Sky Muster fleet.

NBN chose Amazon Leo over Starlink after a competitive procurement, citing regulatory, technical, sovereignty and commercial factors. Sky Muster remains active until 2032 during a gradual migration, and NBN Co is working closely with Amazon Leo on product development, with testing and trials with retail service providers on track for the second half of 2026 and progressive rollout to eligible premises after successful trials.

Amazon’s other weapons include deep AWS integration for enterprise customers in Australia, where AWS already has a major local footprint, potential Prime bundling, and pricing power, with a top-tier 1 Gbps offering delivering a higher advertised maximum download speed than Starlink’s residential tiers.

Chasing Starlink

The new D2D constellation will be distributed between five orbital shells, three mid-latitude shells covering heavily populated regions in countries like Australia, where the NBN relationship is key, plus two covering polar regions.

Amazon says the satellites will process signals in space before relaying them to improve performance, with inter-satellite communication over wireless optical links. They will use beam-forming and beam-hopping to direct concentrated signals with greater precision, maximising coverage while minimising wasted power and interference. The satellites will talk to mobile devices using L-band and S-band spectrum, with ground station links over dedicated Ka-band and V-band radio.

The target is the Elon Musk-owned Starlink, whose lead is huge, more than 10,000 satellites and 9 to 10 million users. Amazon currently has around 394 to 396 production satellites in orbit as of mid-2026, deployed across roughly 19 missions since full-scale operations began in April 2025, making it the third-largest constellation behind Starlink and OneWeb’s 600.

Amazon’s FCC licence required 1,618 satellites in orbit by July 30, 2026, tomorrow, and it is clearly missing that deadline. A conditional extension was granted last month with strings attached. The full Gen1 constellation is 3,236 satellites, and the FCC approved a Gen2 expansion of 4,500 more in January 2026, taking the planned total to 7,727.

The Dependency Trap For Telstra And Optus

Australian carriers, including Optus and Telstra, are currently cuddling up to Starlink. The Amazon pitch to telcos is that Leo is “complementary”, but the structural risk is dependency. Amazon would own the fallback network layer that carriers increasingly rely on to meet coverage obligations, deliver IoT connectivity across remote infrastructure, and satisfy universal service requirements.

Longer term, the market is bracing for a consumer-facing “Amazon Leo Direct” service around 2028, offering voice and data directly to standard smartphones, potentially sold as a premium Prime add-on, turning Amazon from infrastructure provider into a global carrier in its own right.

For Telstra, Optus and TPG the risk is that satellite coverage stops being a carrier differentiator, Telstra’s Starlink tie-up being the obvious example, and becomes something Amazon or Apple sells over the top. For retailers already bleeding share to Amazon’s marketplace, the prospect of the same company owning the connectivity layer as well should set alarm bells ringing.