WorldSpace Direct Satellite Audio System Passes Initial Tests with Flying Colors

Erlangen, Germany. WorldSpace and Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits reached a milestone in the development of their direct satellite audio technology last week.

The next satellite generation of radio is driving toward reality. WorldSpace and the Fraunhofer Institutehave demonstrated that a satellite direct-to-person audio receiver with small efficient antennas works.

In experiments throughout September, at Fraunhofer’s laboratory in Erlangen, engineers used a helicopter equipped with a digital transmitter to simulate direct satellite transmission to prototype receivers in several environments. The tests demonstrated the WorldSpace system will send digital audio and multimedia signals directly to listeners who are driving in their cars, walking along the road or sitting in their homes.

“This demonstration proves that the WorldSpace system will work for people on the move throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Noah A. Samara, Chairman and CEO of WorldSpace, after driving along streets and highways around Erlangen while listening to CD-quality sound being broadcast from the helicopter. “It was a wonderful trip.”

Beginning in mid-1998, WorldSpace plans to launch three geostationary satellites that will broadcast audio and multimedia programs to a potential audience of more than four billion people in Africa and the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The system will offer hundreds of near-CD quality audio and multimedia channels to consumers equipped with personal, portable receivers.

The Fraunhofer Institute is a pioneer in digital audio broadcast. Their software engineers have developed a customized version of MPEG II Layer 3 digital compression which makes it possible for WorldSpace satellites to broadcast good quality audio transmission at rates as low as 16 kilobits per second. Further development and implementation tests of the WorldSpace system will continue in Erlangen over the next several months.