It has actually been going on for a long time.'

This is different. XM's Roady2 is now available at Amazon for $49.

What's different? XM's subscriber numbers have reached a point where
they can build the radios cheaply enough that they can give them away
(or nearly so) without it costing an arm and a leg. In the past, when
either company (mostly Sirius, but occasionally XM) offered any kind of
promotion, they were taking substantial losses on them.

Today, XM can do this and come out on if the average subscriber sticks
with them for only a few months. Sirius is in a tougher spot, because
to get their hardware priced competitively with XM's, they have to take
a loss of about $60-80/unit beyond XM's loss.