The privately held company has spent $1.5 billion in developing this convergence technology with a host of global partners. It owns two satellites, AfriStar and AsiaStar, of which the latter is being used to broadcast content relevant to India. The end user has to purchase a receiver with a tiny antenna (from Hitachi, JVC, Panasonic) prices from Rs 8500 to Rs 12,200. The system is portable. In turn, he gets a slew of broadcast channels depending on the direction his antenna is facing, the maximum being 500. While audio can be played immediately, data can be connected to a computer and downloaded at speeds of 128 kbps. Each satellite can beam near-CD quality of 1500 channels.

Addressing a media conference, WorldSpace director, business development, M Sebastian said that WorldSpace is planning to introduce the AmeriSat in a few months while many more satellites were on the anvil.

In India, the company which is privately held (largely by Noah Samara, a second generation American of Ethiopia) is tying up with a number of regional broadcasters. Six of them have been signed up and another 10 will be tying up soon. WorldSpace plans to provide attractive regional content and is talking to Raj, Asianet and many others. It has tied up with BBC World Service, Bloomberg, CNN and has 10 dedicated channels of its own relaying 24 hours pop, classical music etc.

On AsiaStar, WorldSpace will offer BBC programming in English and major regional languages. The uplinking for Indian broadcasters will be done from Singapore for now. WorldSpace plans to generate revenues from advertisements in its own channels, leasing space to broadcasters and royalties accruing from its proprietary technology.

In India, the company is targeting sales of 100,000 receiver sets for the first year and one million in three years. In Africa, where the platform is already available for broadcast for the last six months, 14,000 receivers have been sold. The product is largely targeted for the developing countries. The medium of broadcast will be one way and will be through the L band, the accepted channel of broadcast for radios.