Bad news for those waiting for Amazon Leo, the new Starlink competitor.

Amazon Leo, Amazon’s new Starlink rival, has removed every reference to “affordable” pricing from its FAQ. Has the project already shifted its pricing strategy?

Amazon is developing a satellite-constellation service designed to compete with Starlink. While the company still has not said exactly when the service will launch, it is already known that France will be among the first countries included in the rollout. Even though this new Starlink competitor is not yet available, Amazon has already introduced significant changes - starting with the brand name.

Rather than launching under the name Amazon Kuiper, Amazon’s satellite internet service will ultimately be called Leo. In its announcement, the internet giant said that Kuiper was only a codename used during development. That is not the only notable adjustment, however. There are also signs that Amazon may already have revisited its pricing approach - or at least, that is what the latest edits to the project’s official website could suggest.

Amazon Leo FAQ update: a telling change

As TechCrunch pointed out, Amazon’s earlier Project Kuiper presentation emphasised a commitment to offering an affordable service. “Project Kuiper is an initiative from Amazon to deliver fast, affordable broadband access to communities around the world that are currently unserved or underserved by traditional internet and communications options. To achieve this goal, Amazon will deploy thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) connected to a global network of antennas, fibre, and terrestrial internet connection points,” the previous version of Amazon’s constellation FAQ stated, for example.

On that same page, the company also said it was aiming to strike the right balance between performance and affordability, and that affordability was one of Project Kuiper’s core principles. In the updated FAQ for Amazon Leo, however, every one of those references to affordability has disappeared.

As a reminder, Amazon has not yet announced what its subscription will cost. It has, however, already stated that it will offer three different packages: Leo Nano with speeds of up to 100 Mbps, Leo Pro reaching up to 400 Mbps, and Leo Ultra with a maximum speed of 1 Gbps.