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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 |
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