AsiaStar to begin services after June
Our Bureau
BANGALORE, March 22
ASIASTAR, put up by WorldSpace Corporation, will start commercial services after June, when it completes in-orbit checks.
One of its three beams will span India. The others will cover China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, WorldSpace's India liaison office in Bangalore said here on Wednesday. Each beam will have 50 channels.
The satellite, second in a line of three, will be offering pure, CD quality digital audio content to portable receivers on the L band. When connected to a PC, it supplies downloadable multimedia programmes. Some of its content providers are BBC, CNNI, Radio France Internationale, Bloomberg, Egypt Radio, Sunrise Radio, NASA Online and several music channels.
The patented receivers have been specially designed and produced by Hitachi, JVC, Matsushita and Sanyo.
" AsiaStar will soon begin providing high quality news, education and entertainment to the people of Asia at an affordable cost," said Mr. Noah A.Samara, Chairman and CEO of the company based in Washington, DC.
This is the only company so far to provide satellite-based digital audio services direct to portable sets. Through its first bird, AfriStar, the company has 30 content providers who are covering Africa and West Asia. The satellite will be controlled from the WorldSpace regional office at Melbourne
-Business Line |
