Earlier this year Ondas Media announced a commercial volume agreement to install Satellite Radio Receivers in Nissan and Infiniti vehicles across Europe. That definitive agreement brings Ondas Media’s total number of pre-sold, factory-installed satellite radios beyond the 1 million mark.
As Ondas Media Satellite Radio receivers will use the same S-DAB spec as the new Worldspace system receivers, then there is the possability of co operation between the 2 systems?.
As Ondas Media Satellite Radio receivers will use the same S-DAB spec as the new Worldspace system receivers, then there is the possability of co operation between the 2 systems?.
Probably they both know, in a future , they would need to merge, like american satellite radio needs to do.
US technology company Qualcomm has scooped all 17 chunks of UK-L-Band spectrum, auctioned over the last week, for a total of £8,334,000 - so you can expect MediaFLO announcements from UK operators any day now.
The auction and started out with nine bidders competing for various combinations of the single 12.5MHz chunk and 16 lots of 1.7MHz each. The bidding closed on Wednesday, but the results finally released this morning reveal that Qualcomm has snaffled the lot.
Other bidders included private radio networks and MVNOs, most of whom dropped out after a few rounds of bidding. O2 pulled out before the auction started (just in time to get their deposit back), and only Vectone and Worldspace stayed the duration against Qualcomm.
We still don't know what Vectone had in mind to do with the L-Band, but WorldSpace will be very disappointed to have lost the larger chunk - it holds licences for its use in Switzerland, Germany and Italy, and was convinced no one else would be interested. That frequency is reserved in parts of Europe for satellite radio, but not in the UK, so anyone who uses it will have to avoid interference from WorldSpace's Europe-wide transmissions.
WorldSpace satellite radio will still be able to relaunch in UK, but won't have the city and town based repeaters for car reception.
MediaFLO mobile TV has had backing from Sky for trials of the system, and Sky are also part of Ch4's digital radio bid, who may develop new joint DAB and mobile TV sets.
Ch4 were planning have space on the new band III mux for mobile TV, so will be interesting to see if they go down the MediaFLO route if the plans for the new band III mux still proceed.
This also means for fitting digital radio in cars in the UK the only practical system will be DAB.
WorldSpace satellite radio will still be able to relaunch in UK, but won't have the city and town based repeaters for car reception.
Worldspace in the UK won't have any protection from interference from whatever technology Qualcomm use in that part of L-Band, which will be low power applications so as not to cause interference to Worldspace in Europe.
Worldspace in the UK won't have any protection from interference from whatever technology Qualcomm use in that part of L-Band, which will be low power applications so as not to cause interference to Worldspace in Europe.
So unless they do a deal with Qualcomm, the WorldSpace satellite radio beam could potentially not work all in UK any more, very bad news for WorldSpace.
So unless they do a deal with Qualcomm, the WorldSpace satellite radio beam could potentially not work all in UK any more, very bad news for WorldSpace.
Financial problems are mounting, from their quarterly report issued May 15:
"In December, WorldSpace secured a financing facility for up to $40 million of subordinated financing from Yenura Pte. Ltd., a company controlled by Noah Samara, chairman and CEO of WorldSpace. While the facility was intended to support the Company's focused activities as it continued urgently to seek additional financing (including financing to address near term debt obligations), the realization of these business objectives has been limited by the continued slow availability of funds from the facility.
WorldSpace Chairman and CEO Noah Samara stated, "I am pleased with the accelerated progress we are making in Europe and believe these achievements are adding substantial value for our shareholders. But, I am concerned about the Company's cash position and its pending and near term payment obligations, including those to our debt holders. We are working very hard to solve this liquidity issue and will announce something as soon as we have a commitment."
Ondas Media signs deal with BMW for in-car satellite radio in Europe
Ondas Media, a would-be satellite pay-radio operator over Europe, has signed German auto-giant BMW to install its system into BMW vehicles, starting in 2012. This major announcement from Dave Krueger, Ondas’ CEO, follows similar recent installation agreements with Nissan and Infiniti vehicles for Ondas.
WorldSpace, Inc, along with its US subsidiaries WorldSpace Systems Corporation and AfriSpace, Inc. have filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
The WorldSpace Board of Directors unanimously determined that Chapter 11 reorganization was necessary for the Company to engage in an orderly process to raise sufficient funds to repay its senior secured and convertible notes by means of either a sale of the Company or its assets, or a recapitalization of the Company.
WorldSpace will continue to operate its business and manage its assets as a “debtor-in-possession” under the jurisdiction of the court and in accordance with the applicable provisions of the Bankruptcy Code and the orders of the court. The holders of the Company’s existing senior secured and convertible notes have agreed to provide, subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, a “debtor-in-possession” financing facility of up to $13 million for a period of 90 days in order to facilitate a sale transaction. The financing facility is expected to enable the Company to continue to pay salaries of critical employees and continue operations which are critical to preserving the value of its core assets through the term of the facility.
Jonathan Marks' comment on this development puts into words what many observers, formerly enthusiastic about Worldspace's stand on educational and informative radio for Africa, have been thinking.
“Over the next year or so we will be broadcasting more and more of our content, not just over the internet, but over terrestrial DAB. We see ourselves as very much a complementary service with DAB. We have designed our radios so that when you are sat in your BMW and perhaps want to listen to a jazz station then you’ll be able to press a button to call up all the selections available on your colour screen. In fact the driver will not much care whether the signal comes from us, or WiMax or DAB. Nevertheless, we’ll list them all. We had hoped to be part of the Channel 4 portfolio of radio channels in the UK, but that plan has died, so our discussions with them has ended but we are still looking [for bandwidth in the UK],” said Charman.
The Jazz FM deal includes a cooperation agreement where Jazz FM and Ondas will create additional specialist radio channels, “as well as working together in relation to sample radio programming content for Ondas’ test and demonstration projects in Munich and Paris in 2010.” Krueger, speaking exclusively to Rapid TV News, said the fact that Jazz FM’s signals already go out on DAB frequencies in the UK helps.
It's a bit ironic that in the USA they offer BBC Radio One and the World Service on satelite. We get that and 8 other stations FREE, that they would kill for. Check out the Sirius schedules and you will see stuff that makes Classic FM look good. When I last looked there was a lot of "jukebox" radio and very few proper stations. I'd rather we fight to keep the BBC intact!
I am beginning to think this forum is full of bankers about to get a fat bonus. Everybody wants to pay subscriptions and line rental to enjoy content "exclusive" to them. There is little concern to promote and protect free to air TV and radio. Protecting the BBC from being butchered by the Tories, and helping encourage viable commercial stations with something fresh to offer on DAB, is where priorities should be. Instead this forum wants more diversity of technology (and confused public) at additional cost to the consumer, rather than accept the long standing traditions of British and European radio as the bedrock for the future.
It's a bit ironic that in the USA they offer BBC Radio One and the World Service on satelite. We get that and 8 other stations FREE, that they would kill for. Check out the Sirius schedules and you will see stuff that makes Classic FM look good. When I last looked there was a lot of "jukebox" radio and very few proper stations. I'd rather we fight to keep the BBC intact!
Ondas seem to have learnt from Worldspace's mistakes and on track to testing in 2010 in Germany and France with a launch in 2012.
They may have a deal with car makers and dealers in Europe (as in the States) where a new S-DAB/T-DAB digital car set is installed in cars as standard with a few months free Ondas subscription which (like the way Sky markets it's services) will continue unless you cancel the direct debit signed when you brought the car!
If the subscription ends looks like you can still use DAB and maybe FM, but they seem to be targeting the rest of Europe rather than the UK (where the terrestial L band they want to use for repeaters in cities is no longer available).
Ondas say as well as the deal with Jazz FM, they are talking with the BBC to provide coverage throughout Europe. which like the deal with Sirius in the US could bring extra income to the BBC.
ORF Radio 3 , from Austria, does something like that on SES Astra 1, 19.2º East.
For the Arabic service of RNW the addition of the webcam and graphics means it is movedfrom the radio section to the TV section on satellite set top boxes, so RNW get more middle east listeners/viewers with out the cost of a full TV service.
Here in the UK it would not work on Sky, they tried an experiment with Talksport but did not work. The radio stations that have moved to the Sky subscription TV sections such as Kerrang, Smash hits, MNE etc have completly different content to the radio stations.
However with new DAB/DRM/internet sets having colour displays and RadioDNS, we will see more webcam and graphics functions appear on radio stations.
Looks like the Worldspace satellites will be decommsioned soon, not sure if the new satellite radio sets Ondas is planning will have displays.
Comments
Probably they both know, in a future , they would need to merge, like american satellite radio needs to do.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/16/qualcomm_buys_l_band/ WorldSpace satellite radio will still be able to relaunch in UK, but won't have the city and town based repeaters for car reception.
MediaFLO mobile TV has had backing from Sky for trials of the system, and Sky are also part of Ch4's digital radio bid, who may develop new joint DAB and mobile TV sets.
Ch4 were planning have space on the new band III mux for mobile TV, so will be interesting to see if they go down the MediaFLO route if the plans for the new band III mux still proceed.
This also means for fitting digital radio in cars in the UK the only practical system will be DAB.
Worldspace in the UK won't have any protection from interference from whatever technology Qualcomm use in that part of L-Band, which will be low power applications so as not to cause interference to Worldspace in Europe.
Financial problems are mounting, from their quarterly report issued May 15:
"In December, WorldSpace secured a financing facility for up to $40 million of subordinated financing from Yenura Pte. Ltd., a company controlled by Noah Samara, chairman and CEO of WorldSpace. While the facility was intended to support the Company's focused activities as it continued urgently to seek additional financing (including financing to address near term debt obligations), the realization of these business objectives has been limited by the continued slow availability of funds from the facility.
WorldSpace Chairman and CEO Noah Samara stated, "I am pleased with the accelerated progress we are making in Europe and believe these achievements are adding substantial value for our shareholders. But, I am concerned about the Company's cash position and its pending and near term payment obligations, including those to our debt holders. We are working very hard to solve this liquidity issue and will announce something as soon as we have a commitment."
Ondas Media signs deal with BMW for in-car satellite radio in Europe
Ondas Media, a would-be satellite pay-radio operator over Europe, has signed German auto-giant BMW to install its system into BMW vehicles, starting in 2012. This major announcement from Dave Krueger, Ondas’ CEO, follows similar recent installation agreements with Nissan and Infiniti vehicles for Ondas.
WorldSpace files for bankruptcy protection
WorldSpace, Inc, along with its US subsidiaries WorldSpace Systems Corporation and AfriSpace, Inc. have filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
The WorldSpace Board of Directors unanimously determined that Chapter 11 reorganization was necessary for the Company to engage in an orderly process to raise sufficient funds to repay its senior secured and convertible notes by means of either a sale of the Company or its assets, or a recapitalization of the Company.
WorldSpace will continue to operate its business and manage its assets as a “debtor-in-possession” under the jurisdiction of the court and in accordance with the applicable provisions of the Bankruptcy Code and the orders of the court. The holders of the Company’s existing senior secured and convertible notes have agreed to provide, subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, a “debtor-in-possession” financing facility of up to $13 million for a period of 90 days in order to facilitate a sale transaction. The financing facility is expected to enable the Company to continue to pay salaries of critical employees and continue operations which are critical to preserving the value of its core assets through the term of the facility.
It also says "The satellite radio company is also in talks to enter content deals with the BBC."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/6582202/DAB-radio-faces-threat-from-satellite-rival.html
The item says about installing S-DAB sets in cars but thought the plan was to include T-DAB as well for when all cars are to have digital sets by 2013?
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/200811032462/ondas-to-pre-launch-in-2010.html
Quote from Martin Charman of Ondas last year
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/200911165227/ondas-media-wins-jazz-fm-plans-emerge.html
I am beginning to think this forum is full of bankers about to get a fat bonus. Everybody wants to pay subscriptions and line rental to enjoy content "exclusive" to them. There is little concern to promote and protect free to air TV and radio. Protecting the BBC from being butchered by the Tories, and helping encourage viable commercial stations with something fresh to offer on DAB, is where priorities should be. Instead this forum wants more diversity of technology (and confused public) at additional cost to the consumer, rather than accept the long standing traditions of British and European radio as the bedrock for the future.
And for a dose of reality...
They may have a deal with car makers and dealers in Europe (as in the States) where a new S-DAB/T-DAB digital car set is installed in cars as standard with a few months free Ondas subscription which (like the way Sky markets it's services) will continue unless you cancel the direct debit signed when you brought the car!
If the subscription ends looks like you can still use DAB and maybe FM, but they seem to be targeting the rest of Europe rather than the UK (where the terrestial L band they want to use for repeaters in cities is no longer available).
Ondas say as well as the deal with Jazz FM, they are talking with the BBC to provide coverage throughout Europe. which like the deal with Sirius in the US could bring extra income to the BBC.
RNW partners with WRN to launch “Radio With Pictures”.
http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/rnw-partners-with-wrn-to-launch-radio-with-pictures
ORF Radio 3 , from Austria, does something like that on SES Astra 1, 19.2º East.
Here in the UK it would not work on Sky, they tried an experiment with Talksport but did not work. The radio stations that have moved to the Sky subscription TV sections such as Kerrang, Smash hits, MNE etc have completly different content to the radio stations.
However with new DAB/DRM/internet sets having colour displays and RadioDNS, we will see more webcam and graphics functions appear on radio stations.
Looks like the Worldspace satellites will be decommsioned soon, not sure if the new satellite radio sets Ondas is planning will have displays.