jasper933 said:
Is SiriusXM slowly migrating only to the XM technology? I noticed on the siriusxm.com web site when searching for a radio, they are only showing XM radios. If so, why would they select XM over Sirius technology?
Is XM technology better than Sirius or is this because the XM radios can also receive the Sirius signal? Is this part of the requirement for the merger. Wikepedia stats, "As a term of the merger, the combined company will be fined almost $20 million for failing to create and market interchangeable radios capable of receiving signals from both companies prior to the merger".
Short answer, yes. The XM hardware and infrastructure is much superior to the Sirius systems. You may have noticed the new radios Sirius XM has been coming out with have been for XM signals, such as the XM Snap, XM Onyx, and the iPhone app/XM Skydock that turns it into a satellite receiver. The XM chipsets cannot decode the Sirius signal and vice versa, but that's not the reason the hardware is better. It's also not a merger requirement. The MiRGE radio fulfilled the requirement you listed.
Here's a bulletpoint list for why they would choose the XM infrastructure:
* XM uses an audio codec known as HE-AAC, or aacPlus v1. It's designed to deliver higher quality audio at bitrates lower than 96 kbps (192 kbps MP3). Sirius uses a less efficient codec called ePAC, which takes more data to deliver at the same quality as HE-AAC. XM also uses the AMBE codec for its voice only data channels, aka the robot voice channels, which uses a mere 4 kbps.
* XM's infrastructure has the ability to move bandwidth around at will, turning channels on and off as needed and turning bandwidth up and down. Sirius channels stay on all the time, unless they're permanently deleted. They find ways of preserving bandwidth using a system like Statmux, where a group of channels have varying bitrates based on what other channels need. Satellite TV uses this too.
* XM is able to alter the channel information on its units at the push of a keystroke. If a channel is replaced by a new one, they can simply change the channel name and logo on the units. Sirius is unable to do this without shutting down the entire system and rebooting it, which causes all units to go dark for a few minutes. For a while this was routine, but Sirius hasn't done a reboot for over two years now.
* While all XM units can receive all channels, many Sirius units have a limit of 135 channels, and this includes a LOT of OEM radios. This is why XM has been adding several Sirius channels to its platform but Sirius has hardly added any XM channels. Sirius has mainly added XM channels to its Best of XM premium package, which brings the platform total over the 135 channel barrier, so the limited Sirius units have simply been deemed Best of XM incompatible. This is also why the newest Sirius XM channel, Spice Radio, has a full time channel on XM while existing part time on Sirius, sharing channel space with Sirius XM Stars Too.
