Satellites Rock! [satellite radio]

Is part of the world tuning into satellite radio? Noah Samara, the chairman and CEO of WorldSpace, founded the company in 1990. Using untapped bandwidth in the gigahertz spectrum and the broad geographical coverage of a satellite beam, he envisaged a revolution in radio broadcasting. The plan was to launch three satellites into geostationary orbit to provide near-global coverage and beam digital, 'CD-quality' radio services to anyone with a receiver. Today, the WorldSpace network comprises two satellites AfriStar, launched in October 1998, and AsiaStar, launched in March 2000. Together they cover Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe and Asia. The deployment of AmeriStar, covering South and Central America, has been postponed for financial reasons. Each spacecraft broadcasts three beams, each capable of delivering more than 40 channels and ancillary data services directly to flat-panel antennas on portable receivers and to personal computer adapters. Each satellite has a bit-rate capacity of about 9 Mbit/s and service providers can choose to broadcast at data rates ranging from 16 kbit/s (for monophonic AM channels) to 128 kbit/s (comparable to stereo CD performance).