"Drewdawg" wrote in message ...

"R J Carpenter" wrote in message
...

to dedicate to non-broadcast uses. What about 100 "digital" customers
who
wanted 56 kilobits at the same time - that's 5.6 megabits per second -
about
equal their whole program bandwidth, I suspect.

Are you saying each channel is only 56kbit? I thought both XM & Sirius
were
64kbit?

I said no such thing. I postulated the load from a digital service, and
then estimated that it might be ABOUT the same as the program load.

I have no idea how many bits per baud (or hertz RF bandwidth) XM or Sirius
achieve.

I bet real money that the talk channels are allocated fewer bits than the
music channels. I'll also wager that some music channels are "more equal"
than others when the bits are passed out.
========
As I've also said, XM and Sirius are using advanced processing to "make a
linen purse of quality from a sow's ear of bits". They have no expectation
of making a silk purse. They are aiming for good enough for most people,
and are selling primarily on content.
========
If you want to see complaints about digital quality, subscribe to
alt.radio.digital, which is largely devoted to digital broadcasting in the
UK.

Bob C.