ESA unveils plans for satellite radio in Europe

While we Americans fight for our satellite radio rights, it looks like the Europeans are getting set to receive a bit of sky high radio entertainment themselves. The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that with the help of a few select partners, it plans to launch the "multimedia car radio of the future," which looks to feature built-in satellite radio and generous timeshifting functionality to boot. The antenna, which will presumably be factory installed on select vehicles, will be a "flattened mobile antenna integrated into the bodywork," and will receive signals in the "Ku" frequency band used by existing communication satellites. Aside from not having to launch an understandably expensive array of equipment to get sat radio to Europe, the service also touts the benefits of timeshifting, noting that a "cache or hard drive-based system" will be included to pause and rewind transmissions, and it would even maintain a connection for short stops (like refueling) so you don't miss a moment of your favorite broadcast. Unfortunately, the ESA isn't spilling any hard release dates for this technology, but we can expect it to hit BMWs at the very least, and the prototype can be seen right now at the Noordwijk Space Expo in the Netherlands if you just happen to be around.

[Via Orbitcast]

[Erik @ Jan 26th 2007 2:16AM]

This could be good news if they decide to bring O&A over to our side of the pond.

[EdZ @ Jan 26th 2007 2:53AM]

Seems like not many will use it for listening to radio, seeing as everybody and their grandparents already has DAB radio.

[Terry @ Jan 26th 2007 3:41AM]

If the two USA Satellite radio companies were to merge they could fly the redundant birds across the pond and provide service in parts of Europe. Of course they would have to pass all the regulatory and political barriers. They would be in a position to already have the hardware and infastructure in place.

[Joel @ Feb 5th 2007 6:28AM]

No they wouldn't.
It doesn't work that way!

[Shaun @ Jan 26th 2007 5:13AM]

And the point of this is what exactly? We've already got digital radio via DAB.

[Dougal @ Jan 26th 2007 6:19AM]

DAB (at least in many parts of the UK) is patchy. Even when you can get it the bit-rateis so low that FM is much better. If sat radio give good coverage and good quality at reasonable price and has the content, then I'll sign-up!

[Shaun @ Jan 26th 2007 11:29AM]

The DAB bitrate in the UK is 192kbps. That's not the problem, it's the codec used which is mp2. The rest of Europe is using AAC+.

Patchy signals will of course get better as more digital masts replace our old analogue equipment.