On Feb 21, 2:40 pm, "Will" wrote:
On Feb 20, 8:56 am, "Roadie" wrote:

For what ever it is worth XM and Sirius issued the long expected
announcement they will be merging. If this agreement eventually
passes muster at Justice Dept., will the broadcast standards also be
merged? Will one standard win out over the other or will yet a third
one emerge? I don't know, but I would hold off buying into an XM
configured G1 until this is resolved.

The business news about this has concentrated on the
requirement for FCC approval and I've seen nothing
about the technical aspects or details. Has anyone?

The two different satellite-radio systems have differing
technical specs, using different digital decoding and
frequency ranges. How can these be "merged"? Wouldn't
they have to abandon one set of satellites and go with
the other alone? Or could there be dual-technology
receivers that "hide" the different transmissions from
the users and present them with a menu of the whole
range of signals from both sources as if they were one?
Has anyone yet built such a device?

I suspect that there will ultimately have to be a winner and loser as
we saw in the VHS and Betamax wars 25 years ago or in the FM wars long
ago. It makes no sense for one company to maintain and enhance two
incompatible technologies broadcasting essentially the same
information. There would have to be a transition period possibly
mandated by the FCC, but ultimately many fancy satellite radios will
have to become doorstops.


By the way, why does no one ever speak of "hacking"
satellite radio in order to get the signals without
paying the monthly fee? There's all sorts of such
illegal activity for satellite TV and every now and then
you read of the countermeasures used by the sat-TV
companies and busts of suppliers of illegal decoder
equipment, but I've never seen anything about the same
activity regarding XM or Sirius. Is it impossible or
is it just that nobody cares enough to do it?

Probably not impossible to hack, but likely a lot harder. And I
wonder whether the result is really worth the effort.

The real question is whether the merger of two companies companies
that both hemmorage a lot of money will result in anything more than a
bigger money pit. Both of them have rewarded their on-air talent
handsomely, but subscriptions are not generating anything close to a
break-even operation. Also consider they are competing against Ipod
technology and existing free brodcast stations both of which media
offer notable benefits over satellite based radio.


73, Will