Ethiopian Space Entreprenuer Noah Samara
Translating a napkin-noted vision into a satellite launching mission
By Tesfaye Ketsela
Ethiopian Review, April-June 2001
If you have not heard the name Noah Samara, you must have not read within the past few years the communication technology columns of the media giants such as The Financial Times, Newsweek, BusinessWeek and The Washington Post, to mention only a few. I found it so refreshing and elating to go through these publications which wrote about a fellow Ethiopian, Mr. Samara, with an enthusiastic tone and admiration for his unique contributions to revolutionizing the global communication industry.
In its June 30, 1997 issue, BusinessWeek introduced him as “the international man of mystery whose name is Samara, and whose game is radio.” Under the heading “The Information Affluence” the February 1998 issue of Media has the sub-heading: “Noah Samara could be the next Rupert Murdoch, as he brings Net access, television and radio service to the developing world.”
Before going into the details of his establishment and the multi-million dollar project he is managing, introducing the man himself will be in order.
Noah Samara was born in Ethiopia and received his secondary and c ollege education in the UK and the US respectively. He completed his secondary education in Ashby de la Zouch, a small town in Leicestershire, United Kingdom. He was the only foreigner in that school at the time. At seventeen, he came to the United States where he pursued pre-med. and pre-law at East Stroudburg, Pennsylvania. He then pursued a graduate program at UCLA in California where he studied Renaissance Reformation History and earned a Master’s degree. He received his Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) from the Georgetown University Law School. He also holds a Master’s degree in International Business from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service.
Upon graduation from Georgetown University, Noah was employed with the DC law firm of Venable, Baetje, Howard and Civilletti as international negotiator at meetings of the World Administrative Radio Conference that is responsible for the allocation of blocks of radio spectrum to various countries, and organizations. He has also served as advisor to many global telecommunication and broadcasting companies on global business and regulatory concerns for mobile communications systems. He has published numerous articles on satellite communications and international law. In 1997, he was awarded Africa’s Innovation Trophy.
He is now the founder and Chief Executive Officer of WorldSpace and its subsidiaries: AfriSpace, AmeriSpace, AsiaSpace and CaribSpace. WorldSpace is the first and only company in the world to be licensed for providing international satellite radio services to Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.
How It All Started
Samara realized and argued that the age-old radio broadcasting system (which is dependent on terrestrial transmission stations) is not adequate nor effective to address the needs of third world nations for whom the maintenance and operation of such stations are too expensive thus limiting their numbers and the number of people who can be reached. (There is only one station for every two million people in the developing nations while this ratio is one to 30,000 in the industrialized countries.)
So, one day, he wrote his “first expression” of a new business plan, on the “back of a napkin” as he remembers. Noah then developed, in 1990, a project to launch a satellite over Africa in order to provide radio service. Even though his idea was met with resistance and skepticism by experts in the field, he worked so hard and managed to win the support of many including the skeptics themselves. In less than a year’s time he applied for and was granted an experimental US satellite license by the Federal Communications Commission. He did not waste any time in heading to Spain to attend the next international radio conference held in Torremolinos in 1992. Here, he mobilized and won the support of representatives of the less developed nations and other sympathetic ones such as Canada and Australia. However, he did not get enough votes for the spectrum allocation, because Russia, most of the European countries and the US, which were thinking of using the frequencies for military purposes, opposed him.
The public relations work of having his corporation properly recognized by delegates was quite a challenging task by itself. Noah could not afford , at the time, to give delegates a ballroom party as usually done by applicants for the satellite licenses. According to one of the reports by The Washington Post, such parties cost “roughly $100,000.” He was, however, lucky enough to find a Mexican restaurant owner who was willing and able to handle the delegates (1,000 in number) for $30,000. “The partycomplete with flamenco and mariachi music, and sombreros for guestswas a smash” as the Post quotes Noah who further commented, “From that night on, everyone knew what WorldSpace was.”
After finally managing to create a coalition of supporters from the less developing countries Noah was able to win his global allocation.
A lawyer by training (as opposed to a satellite engineer, for example) Noah thus surprised the international high-tech communication entrepreneurs by undertaking an ambitious project and turning it into one of the most revolutionary and promising ventures of its kind, as a result of which information will soon be accessible to billions of people throughout the world. His vision and dreams were not based on financial gain as they were on his values and the principles he holds on the importance of accessing information to those who need it mostthe less developed nations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.
In its March 16, 1998, issue, Newsweek states: “Noah Samara seems the antithesis of a high-tech entrepreneur. He is not American. He does not have a businessman’s steel-tempered personality. And he does not have his eye on lucrative Western markets… Before launching his firm he did not have a day of corporate experience.”
Noah is a strong believer in the power of information. Here are some of Noah’s statements quoted by various newspapers and journals which I believe reflect his principles, vision and commitment:
“People are as developed as the information they can access.” (Wired, February 1998)
“The Starting premise, the fundamental bed-rock of our objective, is delivering information to a part of the world that is underserved.” (African Business, May 1997)
“The aim is to allow universal access to the service.., it will abolish information poverty.” (The Financial Times (Nov. 5, 1997)
“True change does not begin with declarations, legislation and grand action. These are its effects. Great change occurs somewhat quietly. Almost imperceptible, but always first in the minds of people. (From a speech at the National Summit on Africa held in Washington D.C. between Feb. 16 and 20, which President Clinton and dignitaries from Africa and other countries attended.)
I had the opportunity to listen to Noah when he addressed students, faculty and guests at Stanford University recently. What struck me most was the way he related every aspect of this sky high project with the dreams and aspirations of mankind and the philosophical tenets around which our basic needs for a decent life in peace and dignity revolve. In getting his messages across, he used simple examples from his day to day experience with ordinary people (adults as well as children). He expressed his compassionate empathy with the less to do, the less educated, the sick and the forgotten in the remote areas of poorest nations around the globe which his project is set out to reach. These strong principles and his vision were, as mentioned earlier, the driving forces for his tireless effort which resulted in successfully establishing a multi-million dollar corporation.
How does the new system work?
Radio signals will be transmitted to satellites (WorldSpace has already launched one, and two will follow soon ) and each satellite will send three beams in overlapping ellipses covering 8.75 million square miles. Broadcasters choose one or more of the zones and link their programs from anywhere in the world. Each satellite can provide about 100 channels transmitted at 16k bits per second which can be combined by a band-width-in demand system to create 128k bps channels. A satellite carries six transponders transmitted through L-band amplifiers (The L-band is preferred by most countries over the AM and FM bands with which we here in the U.S. are familiar). Sound from the broadcaster is then subjected to digital compression using the MPEG 2.5 layer 3 coding algorithm and transmitted through a small satellite dish to the satellite in its geostationery orbit 24,000 miles above the earth. Then, programs will be transmitted from the satellites in 40 MHz of the L-band (1452 to 1492 MHz which is the range of the spectrum Noah’s company,WorldSpace, is awarded in 1992.
Who makes the gadgets and provides specialized services?
More than ten manufacturing and service industries from four different countries (Japan, France, London, and Germany) are working as contractors and subcontractors for the construction, design and manufacture as well as for specialized services for WorldSpace. The radio receivers are manufactured by, JVC, Panasonic, Hitachi and Sanyo of Japan.
Alacatel Espace of France is the contractor for the design and construction of the satellite communications payload, the satellite ground control systems,World Space broadcast services control systems and intercommunications network. Arianespace and Matra Marconi Space, both of France, are subcontractors to Alacatel.
Arienespace is the subcontractor for launch services of the WorldSpace satellites while Matra Marconi Space of France subcontracts for design and construction of the satellite bus, integration and testing of the WorldSpace satellite and design and implementation of the Satellite Control Center.
Franunhofer Institut of Germany studies and designs radio systems, audio signal coding at low bit rates using MPEG Layer 3. It also provides WorldSpace research and developmentsupport and validates WorldSpace technical approach satellite audio. McCann-Erickson World Group promotes WorldSpace receivers globally.
At What Stage is World Space Now?
The first satellite, AfriStar, was successfully launched aboard an Ariane commercial launcher on October 28, 1998, from Kourou, French Guiana. It has already taken its orbital position at 21 degrees east. This venture, by the way, has made Africa , in Noah’s words, “..the first place on earth to experience the new medium of satellite-direct-audio and multimedia broadcasting to hand-held receivers using a tiny dish less than 4 inches in diameter.” AfriStar, one of the four satellites ordered by WorldSpace from Alacatel, will cover Africa, the Middle East, Mediterranean and parts of Southern Europe. It will provide about 50 channels of “crystal clear digital audio programming directly to portable receivers.” The second satellite, AsiaStar was launched on March 21, 2000. AsiaStar will provide coverage to Asia with focus on India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. The third satellite, AmeriStar, is scheduled to be launched in the second quarter of 20001. By the time all three satellites are launched, WorldSpace will be able to provide education, information and entertainment to 4.6 billion people around the globe.
The broadcasters which will be using AfriStar include: CNN International, Bloomberg L.P of the United States; World Radio Network; Capital Radio of Turkey; Kaya FM of South Africa; Taxi Radio of South Africa; the Egyptian Radio and Television; Union Ghana Broadcasting Corporation; Metro East FM from Kenya; Kenya Broadcasting Station; Horizon FM of Burkina Faso; Lebanon’s Radio One of Lebanon; Radio Sud of Senegal; LA 7 of Senegal; Medi 1 of Morocco; Africa Learning Channel of England; Radio Nacional de Espana of Spain; Radio Monte Carlo; Radio Voyager of London, Golfe-FM of Benin. A discussion is currently underway on using WorldSpace Broadcasting Services by Radio Ethiopia.
The broadcast will be heard on small portable receivers. The receivers range in size from handheld portable to stationary indoor units and can use AC power or common dry cell batteries. They are capable of receiving L-band as well as AM and FM band programs. They also contain ports that can receive multimedia programming. At the initial phase, a receiver will cost about $250-350 a piece with the middle class of the developing nations being the target at this price. However, the price will gradually decrease to a level affordable to low income groups as well.
This first digital satellite radio was unveiled on December 9, 1998, by WorldSpace and the manufacturers, Hitachi, JVC, Matsushita (Panasonic) and Sanyo.
In order to ensure a good quality reception, the process of testing the receivers by WorlSpace involved three phases. The first round of tests using the AfriStar was done in Africa and Europe (Toulouse, France) and the receivers have proved to “function very well under actual field conditions.” The second phase of the testing process is being conducted now that the satellite, AsiaStar, is launched. According to the most recent information received from WorldSpace, the receivers are already being sold in retail stores in Nairobi, Lagos, Accra and Dakar. They will soon be available in other countries as well, including Ethiopia.
In this info-tech era when the global community is expressing serious concern about the digital divide and when the dot com generation is daily making a threatening gap between the rich and the poor even in already afluent nations, it is encouraging and uplifting to know that Africans are also doing their share of using the power of information. The visions and hardowrk of outstanding enterpreuners like Noah Samara and their successful accomplishements thereof, are things we are all proud of.
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Tesfaye Ketsela, Ph.D., resides in San Francisco.