WINDS, also called Kizuna, is currently under joint development by JAXA and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, as part of the e-Japan Priority Policy Program of the Japanese government's IT strategy headquarters. WINDS was launched by an H-IIA Launch Vehicle in 2008 to establish the world's most advanced information and telecommunications network.

It is expected that this information and telecommunications network's speed and capacity will be much higher than anything achieved previously. The WINDS satellite communication system aims for a maximum speed of 155 Mbps (receiving) / 6 Mbps (transmitting) for households with 45-centimeter aperture antennas (the same size as existing Communications Satellite antennas), and ultra-fast 1.2 Gbps transmission for offices with five-meter antennas.