The Fraunhofer Institute has been allocated ist own channel for one year for testing purposes. Broadcasting started on June 7th 1999. The currently available WorldSpace radios are still limited to music reception. An acceptable transmission quality of moving pictures within a broadcasting channel of only 128 kbps is a great challenge. This data rate is only two percent of a standard digital TV channel.
Further applications are to follow.
The Institute is looking for programm providers to supply contents for the testing stage. It must be remembered that the satellite does not only broadcast over Africa bur also over the Southern parts of Europe. The broadcasts can even be received in Germany. Music without moving pictures is broadcast at very best sound quality. Visitors are invited to booth no. 5 and booth no. 13, hall 6.3 There will be demonstrated to show the complete broadcasting chain from the studio and the uplink station to broadcasting via satellite and the reception with purpose-made radios.