Our Partners

Higher Bandwidth Than Other Datacasting Technologies

MSN Direct provides at least 15 times more data throughput than RDS, and at least three times more throughput than Flex paging. MSN Direct's higher throughput enables it to provide a larger and richer set of services.

For more details on how MSN Direct compares to RDS, please read this white paper.

Local Towers Transmit Local Data

Over 110 megabytes of data are delivered daily to each and every metro area in the network. The towers broadcast the same national data, but more importantly each tower also broadcasts content specific to the city in which it resides (for example, local traffic, movie times, events, and weather). Consumers simply receive the local data for whatever city they are in. As they travel from one city to another their MSN Direct-enabled device automatically receives the local information for that city.

Low Power Receiver

The MSN Direct receiver consumes very little power - much less power than cellular and WiFi radios. This is largely due to the fact that MSN Direct uses broadcast technology and therefore never transmits like cellular and WiFi modules do, and transmitting consumes significantly more power than just receiving. In fact, the MSN Direct receiver uses so little power, in some devices it can remain running in the background to acquire data even when the rest of the device is turned off. This allows the device to immediately display up-to-date content as soon as it's turned on.

Sophisticated Error Correction

In mobile environments reception conditions vary greatly as devices move around. The type and quality of the error correction algorithms employed will have a significant impact on the ability to receive information in poor reception conditions. Microsoft Research, one of the world's premier corporate research groups, assisted in the design and selection of the algorithms used by MSN Direct. Multiple layers of error correction are employed, including bit-level, byte-level, and packet level, as well as time-diversity forward error correction. Not all wireless networks employ the same sophisticated techniques used by MSN Direct.

Push Delivery

MSN Direct uses a push model to deliver data. There is no need to request data and wait for a response from a server. Instead, information is constantly being streamed over the air and cached on the client device so that it's instantly available. This allows users to view their information with a quick glance and minimal user interaction, minimizing driver distraction in the vehicle.

Long Term Network Availability

When you build a datacasting technology into your products it's important that the wireless technology, bandwidth, and service provider will be available for a sufficient time into the future. MSN Direct has long-term leases for a dedicated amount of bandwidth on FM radio towers owned by major corporations, including the largest broadcasters in the US and Canada, such as Clear Channel, CBS Radio, Entercom, Citadel Broadcasting, and Rogers. FM radio has been around dozens of years, and the companies that own the towers are equally time tested.

By partnering with numerous broadcasters, we minimize risk and make it easier to add more towers and expand coverage. And when you consider datacasting service providers, you'll be hard-pressed to find a company more stable and that takes a longer-term view than Microsoft.

The MSN® Direct Receiver Development Kit (RDK) includes documentation, guidelines, tools and software that will facilitate the integration of MSN Direct with your products.

In particular, the RDK includes MSN Direct receiver emulator software that allows you to evaluate MSN Direct communication protocols and begin detailed design and development work for your products without requiring any specialized hardware.

A portion of the MSN Direct RDK¹ is available for download here.

To obtain the complete version of the MSN Direct RDK, or to determine whether you qualify to become licensed to manufacture and sell a product incorporating MSN Direct technology please engage the MSN Direct Business Development team by sending an email to: dbbusdev@microsoft.com.

1 These materials are for informational and evaluation purposes only and may change without notice. You may review these materials only (a) as a reference to assist you in planning and designing your product, service or technology to interface with MSN Direct technology as described in these materials; and (b) to provide feedback on these materials to Microsoft. Except as expressly provided in a written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of these materials does not give you any license to the patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property covering subject matter in these materials and it does not give any right to manufacture or sell a product using MSN Direct technology.

Please note that the list of partners here is not represented to be nor intended to be comprehensive. The inclusion or omission of a partner or a product does not constitute any endorsement, representation or opinion by Microsoft regarding the companies, products, or services listed herein. Microsoft and the partners may make changes to these materials at any time, without notice. Microsoft and the partners make no commitment to update the information contained herein.

The information provided herein regarding non-Microsoft products, and their use with Microsoft products, was provided to Microsoft by the respective partners of such products. Microsoft does not warrant and accepts no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information, graphics, links or other items contained herein.

MSN^® Direct works with a variety of navigation device OEMs, receiver manufacturers, and software developers to provide an end to end solution for location based services. To become a partner, start here:

Navigation Device Manufacturers

MSN Direct, Microsoft, and our partners can either offer a complete solution for location based services on your navigation devices or provide only the missing ingredients needed to complete your solution.

Services Infrastructure

MSN Direct operates a commercial service utilizing unused FM radio spectrum to broadcast data to 125 cities in the US and Canada, including the top 100 biggest cities in all 50 US states and five Canadian provinces.

In addition to delivering the data to customers, MSN Direct handles the operations, service activations/signups, customer support, payment collection, renewals, cancellations, and all other areas of customer management.

Navigation Software

MSN Direct provides several options for integrating services into your software:

MSN Direct also provides the firmware that runs on the receiver module. That firmware manages the radio receiver hardware, processes over-the-air data transmission, employs error correction, and communicates data in a simple format over a serial interface to the navigation software running on the host device.

Receiver Modules

MSN Direct has partners available to deliver complete receiver solutions, modules for integration or individual components allowing many flexible options designed to meet the most demanding product requirements:

Navigation Software Providers

MSN Direct has as a rich software development kit available for navigation software developers, including libraries, API specifications, receiver emulator tools, user interface guidelines, graphics libraries, and more.

If you would like to integrate MSN Direct services into your navigation software, get started by contacting MSN Direct.

Brand names, logos and trademarks used herein remain the property of their respective owners. All product descriptions and specifications are made and provided by their respective manufacturers.

To obtain more detailed, proprietary information about the technical aspects of implementing a device incorporating MSN^®Direct, please email the MSN Direct Business Development team at: dbbusdev@microsoft.com.

If your company meets our minimal business requirements, your MSN Direct Business Development partner may engage your company in appropriate agreements, including, for example, non-disclosure agreements, Receiver Development Kit agreements, and if appropriate, an agreement governing your company's collaboration with Microsoft to develop and ship a compliant, production-quality device that receives and displays MSN Direct content.