Interesting news huh? I wonder will it happen. Would be nice to have the best of both services.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ia_sirius_dc_1

 

Mel has already said that he hasn't spoken with anyone at XM regarding this and does not know where it's coming from. Besides there's no way the FCC and the SEC would allow the merger with only two players providing the service at this time.

I would have liked to see it happen as well. I own stock in both companies and would have made even more off this merger and wouldn't be forced to buy a portable Sirius radio to listen to Howard in 06.

 

Never happen, the government won't let it.

 

rumors to keep the sirus stock from droppling like a rock since they reported a wider loss than last year. All BS.

 

its Offical now...

 

I hope XM switches to Sirius programming. I've had XM for years and I just put Sirius in my truck and I think it's a whole lot better. I spend most of my time changing channels when I'm in the TL.

 

The two companies have now officially released statements that they are going to persue a merger. If they were successful, the merger wouldn't happen for at least a year. The companies have stated that they will combine programming so that everyone will get sirius and xm content.

They have also stated that everyone's current equipment will be compatible with the new service, although I'm not sure how that would be possible for the following reason: both XM and Sirius are bandwidth-limited (that's why the sound quality for both services isn't very good). Neither provider has the bandwidth necessary to carry both companies' programming. So I wonder how it would work. How would they pick and choose? I think you'd HAVE to upgrade your radio, regardless of what the press release says.

 

I also am suspicious about promises to maintain legacy receivers. The main benefit to a merger would be the bandwidth savings from no longer having to carry duplicate channels.

I'd *hope* that they'd put their combined bandwidth into a single pot, and dole out some HD radio to a new receiver in a couple of years.

 

Well that's what they're basically going to do, I think, but the problem is that you'd have to buy new hardware to be able to support that. The problem with existing hardware is that Sirius and XM operate on different frequencies. So for example, your current XM reciever will NEVER be capable of recieving transmissions from Sirius' satellites, and vice versa. So what will have to happen for your idea to work (which is a great idea), is to build a new XM + Sirius radio that is capable of recieving transmissions from both frequencies. Then you'd essentially have twice the bandwidth. Removing redundant programming could result in more HD channels and/or higher sound quality across all channels. But again, not without changing the reciever hardware.

 

This is the latest thread on the XM/Sirius merger: It's Official! XM And Sirius Are Merging - MERGED THREAD

Please continue your discussions there.