Satellite communications company Iridium Communications Inc. wants to enable connectivity for “internet of things” services from space in a new partnership with public cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services Inc.

The company said it’s hoping to connect Amazon’s IoT services with its satellite network by next year. The idea is that Iridium’s constellation of telecommunications satellites will be able to provide internet connectivity in areas where cellular coverage doesn’t yet exist, in order to enable IoT deployments in more remote parts of the world.

Iridium’s fleet of satellites is almost fully operational. The company, together with launch partner Space Exploration Technologies Corp., plans to send its final 10 communication hubs into space later this year, adding to the 65 that are already in low-Earth orbit. Once done, Iridium plans to integrate the 75 satellites with Amazon’s cloud-based IoT services, enabling connectivity for the 80 percent of the Earth that currently lacks wireless coverage.

“Each existing Iridium partner will be able to rapidly adopt AWS services due to the automated translation of the Iridium network’s proprietary protocols and industry standard IoT protocols supported by AWS IoT, to and from the appropriate devices and databases,” the company, which claims to have 630,000 active devices running on its network, said in a statement.

Amazon has been steadily growing its cloud-based IoT services. Last year it launched a service called Greengrass that can connect devices to its cloud via its AWS Lambda offering, which embeds computing power into IoT devices.

Partnering with Iridium would massively expand the reach of Amazon’s IoT services, as the “CloudConnect” network would enable its customers to “keep everything the same on the back end, while opening up the opportunity to quickly expand their coverage.”

Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc., said the partnership seems to make sense as IoT may move beyond where traditional networks reside.

“The relative high costs of Iridium may make selective use cases cosmetically feasible, as this is pretty much the only way for enterprises to track something on a global level,” Mueller said. “[But] a clear view to the sky is required.”

Image: Iridium