BT's set-top boxes will plug into a broadband connection, and will also double as digital terrestrial receivers, so that receiving standard digital broadcasts will be free.
Using the natural reflectivity of ceilings and walls, a transmitted infra-red signal can be received by any number of receivers within a room.
Sometimes trucks loaded with internet receivers, Thurayas [satellite phones] and communications equipment were lost if the driver was detained by security forces or killed while making the shipment.
In addition, being able to buy DSPs off the shelf has saved the company a fortune in not having to create a custom-built chipset from scratch.The company's co-founder and chief executive, Paul Heinerscheid, talks of adding a GPS (global positioning system) feature to the receivers.
No one expects motorists to replace their existing car radios with satellite receivers overnight.
The first digital radio receivers will be unveiled to the American public in January 2003.
None of the satellite-radio firms will be giving away $229 receivers or doing installation for nothing.
At the time, the technology for compressing packets of digital music and voice and transmitting them from orbiting satellites 23,000 miles above the equator to cheap little receivers on the ground was barely on the drawing-board.
The design calls for around 3,000 individual receivers arranged rather like a spiral galaxy, with most of the telescopes concentrated in an inner core, and the rest arranged into a set of arms up to 3,000km (about 2,000 miles) long.
The experiment was sponsored by Discovery Communications, a TV company, for a documentary.Announcing his results, Mr Mankins said that what was needed next was a two-year engineering study of a full SSP system, covering everything from the launch vehicles to the ground receivers.
According to Navsys, the company that developed JLOC, it involves a network of GPS receivers capable of detecting regions of higher than normal signal levels and low signal-to-noise ratios, either of which can indicate interference.
