Satellite Connectivity for Construction Sites: Webinar Q&A
On 8 October, construction IT leaders put their questions on cost, security, rail and scaling to UK Connect’s CEO Joe Budnar-Hunt and Amazon Leo’s David Fox, in a webinar hosted by Construction News. Watch the full webinar on demand, or read the answers below.
The short version: Amazon Leo satellite strengthens construction site broadband coverage and resilience, working best alongside fibre and cellular mobile, not instead of them.
Why is internet on construction sites still so unreliable?
Construction sites are temporary, and they change constantly, so construction site broadband is rarely in place on day one. Many sites still rely on one connection, one carrier or one technology. That single point of failure is the problem Joe Budnar-Hunt sees most often after more than a decade connecting UK construction sites.
David Fox put it this way: construction is the sector where connectivity used to arrive last but matters first. A new plot has no fixed line, and mobile coverage is whatever the local mast happens to give you that day.
Downtime costs far more than the connection. Internet outages cost UK businesses an estimated £17.6 billion in lost output over 12 months, according to Assembly Research for Vorboss1 (2024):
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- On –site: lost productivity and no access to digital tools, CCTV or cloud systems.
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- Off-site: commercial and customer teams stall; for housebuilders, a sales suite that can’t take payments or bookings sells fewer homes.
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- Compliance: it’s harder to upload the evidence that compliance regimes ask for.
- Compliance: it’s harder to upload the evidence that compliance regimes ask for.
Is Amazon Leo satellite enough on its own?
No. LEO satellite is one tool in a wider kit, not a silver bullet. Resilient site connectivity comes from combining fixed line, mobile and satellite intelligently, so that each one can fail over to another, and from choosing technology to fit the outcome a site needs.
That outcome changes over a project. “What you require for day one might not be what you require after ninety days,” Joe said. A site can open with five operatives and grow to 300 people across a much larger compound.
Amazon Leo fits that pattern in two ways, according to David:
- As primary connectivity from day one, installed in days with no dig. The result? Site cameras, cabins and sales suites all online before fibre is in the ground.
- As resilient failover alongside other technology types., The result? The site has ‘always-on’ connectivity, even if one link drops.
The same Amazon Leo terminal can start as a site’s primary connection and later become its failover. For comparison, the average UK fibre circuit takes 3 to 6 months to install, based on UK Connect’s own delivery experience.
Resilience matters in cities too. David described a city-centre business running 4K screens over 5G, where mobile performance dropped every time the area got busy, meaning a dependable alternative was needed.
How does Amazon Leo compare with Starlink?
The audience asked how Amazon Leo compares with Starlink. David Fox made Amazon Leo’s case on two points: performance and trust. Amazon Leo runs on Ka-band spectrum, and he says its terminals are smaller and more powerful than older phased-array antennas.
The Amazon Leo antenna range is versatile for varying site requirements:
| Terminal | Download (up to) | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Leo Nano | 100 Mbps | Temporary site offices, pop-up connectivity |
| Leo Pro | 400 Mbps | Standard site set-ups |
| Leo Ultra | 1 Gbps (400 Mbps upload) | Large sites, multi-floor site offices |
On trust, David pointed to the businesses that already run critical workloads on AWS, and to the service-level agreements (SLAs) that come with Amazon Leo enterprise plans, which he said are not standard in the satellite market.
How do you justify the cost when construction margins are thin?
Compare it with what a day spent offline costs.
For example, a sales suite that can’t take bookings, or a site team without plans, the business impact of internet downtime costs more than the connection itself. David added that LEO has removed the high latency and high cost per gigabyte that made older geostationary (GEO) satellites harder to justify.
Joe Budnar-Hunt said the bigger issue for construction is often predictability. When a business mixes technologies across sites, there is rarely a fixed cost per site, and recharging costs from group to regional business units becomes an admin headache. UK Connect’s hybrid-WAN service, FUSION, answers this with one pricing model: you set the connectivity SLA you need across the estate, and UK Connect delivers it at a single fixed cost, whatever technology each site uses.
How secure is Amazon Leo satellite on a construction site?
Every new site cabin is another way into your network, so the main risk is scale.
Construction estates have many distributed sites, and every new connection widens the attack surface. Joe’s advice is to protect traffic and data in transit, control which users and devices can connect, and move towards SASE and SD-WAN as a zero-trust foundation.
On the network itself, David said Amazon Leo encrypts all traffic from the customer terminal through to its handoff to the internet or to AWS, using AES-256 as standard. Businesses that run workloads on AWS can also route Amazon Leo traffic straight into AWS, so it never crosses the public internet.
Does LEO satellite work for rail, airports and teams on the move?
Yes. Satellite coverage does not depend on local masts, which is why it suits rail teams working on trackside in areas with poor mobile signal. The question is how to deliver it: a fixed install, a vehicle-mounted fleet option, or a portable unit.
Joe pointed to UK Connect’s rapid capability solution, the RBK (Rapid Broadband Kit), a single portable unit that combines cellular and satellite, for teams that move between locations.
At railway stations and airports, where operators such as Network Rail and Heathrow set strict rules, Joe said two things matter: a delivery team qualified to work in those environments, and equipment certified to operate there. David added that this is why Amazon Leo works through accredited local partners.
The pattern is already showing up in the sector. Tarmac now moves LEO terminals between remote road projects in England and Scotland, CIHT reported.
Who manages the connection over the life of a project?
UK Connect does. It monitors every connection for quality of experience, user numbers and SLA performance, not just whether it is up or down, and adds capacity as a site grows from 5 to 300 people. Its in-house field team can move an internet connectivity solution when a site compound relocates, and again then decommissioning it and redeploying it on the next site.
Amazon Leo shares network health data with its partners, down to a terminal’s operating temperature. So when a site calls UK Connect “on a rainy Tuesday morning,” as David put it, the support team can give a qualified answer.
Why not buy direct from Amazon? David said Amazon believes in customer choice, but enterprises rarely wake up wanting to buy satellite connectivity; they have a problem to solve. Most choose a partner for installation, the managed service layer and an existing relationship. Joe’s view was that tech and IT leaders want one accountable provider in the UK, so they can focus on the tools that run on the network.
What are the limits of LEO satellites for construction today?
LEO satellites should not be treated as a “one-size-fits-all” solution for every construction site setup and location. It very much should form as part of an arsenal of solutions that can tackle the most common construction site internet challenges.
- Narrowband IoT, such as asset tracking, is not the launch focus. David said Amazon Leo is concentrating on broadband first, with direct-to-device work under way in the background.
- Rail, airport and other regulated environments need certified equipment and qualified installers before any technology can go in.
- Satellite works best as part of a mix. A site that already has reliable fibre may only need LEO as a failover.
Where can I watch the full webinar?
The full session runs for just under an hour and includes the panel’s discussion of AI on site, Hitachi Construction Machinery connecting plants on European sites, and what Joe and David would ask any IT leader who’s currently planning their connectivity strategy.
Planning connectivity for a new site? Register your interest today, and the expert team at UK Connect will assess and recommend the right connectivity solution specifically for your sites, free.
