Higher powers

Satellite player Worldspace intends to make itself useful as an alert system.

Imagine: what if the tsunami-afflicted coastal regions had an alert system that would've sounded them off in time to flee?

Satellite radio player WorldSpace, which beams music and other audio content into receivers in India, now plans a disaster alert system that intends to disseminate reliable information on impending threats, according to S Rangarajan, senior vice-president, WorldSpace Corp.

Currently, it has some 1,15,000 subscribers for its music, news, sports and other information, across the world "" as covered by its two satellites AfriStar and AsiaStar.

The disaster alerts could have been deployed to educate and help the bird flu affected villages, says Rangarajan. The idea is to have public address systems hooked up to satellite receivers in case of an emergency.

"One has to invest in the satellite set to begin with, which will cost you atleast Rs 5,000," says Rangarajan, "And if one wants to utilise the satellites for education, health or agricultural purposes, then one has to count the computer and internet connection costs too."

Other purposes? The system, being digital, can be used for the transmission of any data in the form of 0s and 1s, and this opens up the possibility of myriad applications (in the field of distance education, for example).

"Our digital audio broadcast (DAB) satellites can incorporate digital processing techniques, proven for IP data delivery," says Rangarajan.

But Indian villages are too badly equipped for that. "I realise that we are a long way from a situation when rural educational centres will boast of an internet connection for computers," says Rangarajan, "But if we start believing in technology and government backs this belief at the grassroot levels, it might not sound too far fetched."

The disaster alert system may prove to be the penetrative locomotive for the technology in rural India. But how does WorldSpace source its information?

That's the job of content providers. WorldSpace merely beams the data, and survives on a fraction of the fees paid by satellite radio subscribers.