The nine-year-old company plans to launch AsiaStar, its second satellite, in February to provide coverage and service to China, Korea,and India. A third satellite serving Latin America is scheduled for launch later next year. Eventually, the three-satellite constellation could serve an area with a population of 4.6 billion.

The Worldspace system will use its initial AfriStar satellite to beam more than 25 channels at data rates ranging from 16 to 128 kbits/second. Receivers built by four licensees — Hitachi, JVC, Matsushita and Sanyo — will cost between $200 and $400, but the Ethiopian-born Samara said he expects the price to drop quickly after the three-year licensing deals on the receivers expire.

Potentially 1 billion receivers could be sold in Worldspace's coverage area, Samara said. The company hopes to sell 100,000 receivers by early next year in Africa and the more affluent Middle East. Company officials acknowledged that given the large number of components being squeezed into the digital receivers, volume production will be the best way to reduce cost.

The Worldspace digital network uses MPEG-2.5 layer 3 digital compression to squeeze more than 50 channels into its broadcast signal. The new digital receivers used a proprietary chip set called Starman to receive digital signals from the broadcast satellite hovering in a geostationary orbit.

The receivers also include a patch, or flat, antenna and operate with either a battery or an ac power adapter. Since a majority of potential users lack access to a power grid, Worldspace partners have also been working to reduce the receiver's power consumption so it can eventually use solar power.

The receiver's chip sets are being manufactured by STMicroelectronics, Italy's Intermetall and Micronas Intermetall (Freiburg, Germany).

For now, Worldspace will focus on delivering news in at least four languages along with CD-quality music. Samara said multimedia services will be delivered in tiers as part of a subscription service. Receivers can be attached to a laptop via a PCMCIA card to receive content for an additional fee. Even so, "This is not a two-way service," Samara said. The goal is to spread information to regions of the world ignored by major broadcasters, he said.

While the launch of the Worldspace service is generating much attention and hope, it is also drawing comparisons to the cash-strapped Iridium satellite communications project. "We are providing a fundamentally different service," Samara said. In targeting underserved areas, he said the Worldspace service won't be competing with an existing terrestrial infrastructure. "This entire exercise is market-driven," Samara said.

The decade-old effort to bring digital radio technology to the world's poorest countries is expected to cost more than $1 billion. A group of Middle East investors is backing the project.