Talk:Sirius and XM merger

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Contents 1 OPPOSITION ARGUMENTS 2 c3sr 3 Channel grid 4 Repeaters 5 XM Branding and Corporation to be kept 6 Linking to wikinews 7 Current events 8 Switching order of names/pictures 9 Senator Arlen Specter 10 Milestones

[edit] OPPOSITION ARGUMENTS

This section seems extremely unfair and one sided. It makes the argument against merger seem to be a fight between the National Association of Broadcasters and Sirius/XM. It seems to imply that the NAB is the evil side, versus the good of the merger, and that their fight against merger is only based on greed and spurious arguments. This includes calling the Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio a shill group run by the NAB. In truth, the connections between the c3sr and NAB are tenuous at best, with the c3sr bringing up a defense against merger that seems to reflect the public's interest.

The c3sr's argument should be represented here, as it sheds light on collusion between XM and Sirius, in their dealings with the FCC. [1][2]

Also, there is no mention of the FCC ignoring a prime rule of granting the two available satellite broadcasting licenses, that if there was a merger one of the licenses would have to be returned to the public. This is an important caveate to their original licensing and is the main point of XM/Siruis' argument that terrestrial radio is enough competition to warrant the combining of their licenses.

To sum up, the article is not balanced and reflects more the opinions of those in favor of the merger, with major facts omitted. --Stilleon (talk) 18:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] c3sr

I added info on the C3SR, as they are certainly relevant here - however, there is no article and I don't really have time to put one up at the moment. If anybody has time, please put up a stub or something for them and link to it rather than their EL on the See Also section. JaedenStormes 14:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The section titled "Criticisms" seems to contain nothing but opinons, with no link to any reputable source - specifically the argument that this will create a monopoly.

• I cleaned the section up to be more NPOV/encyclopedic. Hopefully this helps, because the section does make some valid points. JaedenStormes 17:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Nicely done. Your text looks much better than mine. At this point, I'm just trying to get everything in that I can find. The monopoly issue is a little indirect: both yesterday's press release and today's webcast address it by pointing out that they compete with satellite tv, cable tv, music download services, and Internet radio. The monopoly issue itself is always a concern for federal regulators when dealing with mergers; in recent memory, the FTC has blocked a few mergers between large companies in various industries specifically because the result would be a monopoly. In fact, DirecTV and Dish network tried to merge a few years ago and were blocked for that very reason.

I'm still trying to make the article look a little better. Don't hesitate to make changes that improve the article, and add news items as they come up. My plan was to put breaking news in the top, sorted by date (newest first), and change the other sections as the information in breaking news applies to other areas. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 18:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

After looking at the C3SR stuff, I don't think it's encyclopedic. I'm trying to keep this article NPOV. Since someone has already pointed out that breaking news info belongs on the news Wiki, I may add this information to an article over there and set up an inter-wiki link.

Here's the web site for the C3SR: Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio

• Respectfully disagree. A group of students forming a protest group is no less encyclopedic than the NAB's complaints. For the record, I am very pro-merger and certainly am not trying to promote the C3SR's agenda. That said, I do think they have a place in this discussion. JaedenStormes 15:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

This point is no longer valid as this student group is filing arguments in Federal courts. --Stilleon (talk) 18:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Channel grid

I had an idea, but don't have time to implement right now.

I was thinking of grabbing a channel guide from both services and then creating a projected guide of what the new structure might look like. Merge duplicate channels, keep unique channels.

For example:

Category	XM Channel	SIRIUS Channel	New Channel
Talk & Entertainment	163: Sonic Theater		Sonic Theater
Talk & Entertainment	164: Radio Classics	118: Radio Classics	Radio Classics
Talk & Entertainmnet		100: Howard Stern	Howard Stern

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by TomXP411 (talk • contribs) 18:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We don't to predictions, conjecture, or scientific wild-ass guesses here. 128.226.230.88 14:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's a link to a comparison chart of the music channels [3], which was discussed at the Sirius Backstage Forum in this thread: [4]. It's not a prediction, only a matchup of the current channels. I'm providing this link only to save anyone the work of putting it together. I agree that any predictions of future channel service does not belong on the main page. 72.76.156.230 03:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Too bad it only covers the music channels. I'm one of those that's glad that there are less "popular" formats on XM. I listen to Sonic Theater, Fox News, CNN, and classical probably 95% of the time that my radio is on. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 05:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Just do it if and when they get merged! -GD1223

[edit] Repeaters

I'm still digging up info on the XM and Sirius repeaters. what I'm posting in the talk pageis mostly notes. If you find more data, please append it here and I'll try to sort it out.

What I know for sure right now

the XM repeaters use a dish antenna for the receive side. This makes it impossible for them to pick up the Sirius satellites, since the Sirius satellites move. The XM birds are stationary in relation to the ground.

Speculation based on what I do know

XM can't legally transmit outside of their licensed spectrum. Since radio transmitters can only transmit on one frequency at a time, there would have to be a transmitter module for each frequency that XM transmits on. To add frequencies for Sirius channels will require additional transmitter modules.

This is the link to some information about an XM repeater site: http://www.telebeans.org/telco/towers/notes/xm_radio.html

This link shows the SDARS spectrum: http://images.xmfan.com/sdars.gif

It looks like Sirius uses two frequencies, and XM uses four for the satellites. I know that the Sirius signals are redundant, I'm unclear about whether you need two or all four XM freqs to get a signal.

So best case: two XM freqs are needed and one Sirius freq is needed. This would mean adding one transmitter and one receiver to the repeater cabinet. Since the actual bandwidth is different, the physical design of the unit will be different. This means that XM can't just "turn on" hardware in existing boxes unles these are Software Defined Radios... however, SDR is still pretty much in its infancy, and when these boxes were designed and certified, SDR wasn't in public use yet.

more as I find it. I'll only post verified info on the article itself.

Sirius DOES use a getostat bird for their repeater network, according to Sirius Satellite Radio. However, it's a Ku Band satellite, incompatible with the XM repeaters, which pull signal straight off XM's SDARS band signal. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 18:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Good research, but I don't think we have anything verifiable at this point to say anything in the article about whether changes in the repeaters will be needed or not.72.88.248.252 12:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. A few people over on XMFan were concerned about the repeater situation, since they use their radios inside of an office, and the only way they can get signal is from their local repeater. If only half the stations come through, that will be a problem. I'm going to keep my eyes open on that one. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 05:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

For each company, the repeaters are just that--they repeat the satellite signal (albeit Sirius does so through a parallel Ku band feed, as noted above). So questions of repeater compatability essentially are the same as receiver satellite techical standards, discussed in the article. Because the companies promise that the two systems would persist (with their different transmission and coding techniques) for some time, the repeaters will as well, each repeating one system's transmissions. (The companies say the content will change somewhat post-merger, trimming some duplicative feeds to give existing subscribers the "best-of-the-best" of both systems.) Single system radios will still "see" that system's repeaters. Interoperable radios will "see" both satellite feeds--and both sets of repeaters. Telecom satellite 00:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

So far, I've seen conflicting reports of what they're going to do. As far as I can tell, removing "duplicate" content won't help, since both networks are full. The only way to actually add new content will be for people to either have 2 radios or a universal receiver. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 18:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

That's true in general, with caveats. Sports should be simple--seasons and time of day will support substantial bandwidth sharing between program feeds. And both companies have expanded their offerings over time, even apart from the proposed merger. Telecom satellite 21:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Note that, for Sirius, the repeater signal (from the repeater to the receiver) is not a pure copy of the satellite signal. While the underlying data, is, of course, the same, the encoding technology is very different. "coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplex (COFDM) for the ground and time-division multiplex quadrature phase-shift keyed (TDM-QPSK) for the satellites" [5]. However, this doesn't change the points you make, which are all still valid.72.88.254.234 03:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

My speculation is that XM and Sirius receivers need only an over-the-air firmware upgrade to read each other's signals. The antennas have an amplifier built into them (powered through the antenna cable by the receiver) because a 2.3 GHz signal needs to be pretty strong to make it through that thin cable (putting a more powerful amplifier in the antenna will not give you better reception). Because Sirius and XM use adjacent RF bands it would be technologically difficult to make the antenna only work on one of those bands. We need someone who has both services to try swapping the antennas. Knowing that, we can assume that the units can receive both Sirius and XM signals, but can they processes both signals?

Inside each receiver is a tuner (in a metal enclosure, a little bigger than a pack of gum). The tuner can be taken out of one unit and put into a totally different receiver (though this would void your warranty and might be against Sirius's terms and conditions). The SID is part of that tuner, so if you swap the tuners in a receiver you are also swapping the SIDs, and this will show up if you look at the SID in the menu options. Features such as the FM transmitter, 44/30 minute cache, on screen menus, etc are not handled by the tuner, they are handled by the rest of the circuitry in the unit. This interoperability between models suggests that every tuner is identical (may be smaller in the Stilleto), except for the SID.

Those of you with Sirius are probably familiar with the message "Updating Channels" on your screen even though the channel lineup hasn't changed. My understanding is that sometimes "updating channels" is a firmware update for the tuner. Sirius is constantly modifying the audio compression codec (not to be confused with the bit rate) to squeeze better sound out of the same bit rate. The sound quality has improved slowly over time because of these little tweaks. This means that the firmware in the tuner can be upgraded over the air to adapt to new codecs (much like how the firmware on MP3 players can be upgraded to work with new file formats). If everything I have said is correct thus far, then I see no reason why Sirius and XM could not switch to the same codec and send a firmware upgrade over the air to the receivers so they will work with the new codec.

The only thing that I'm not sure of is if the tuner can be told to process the other band in addition to the one it is currently accepting. It's a question of whether or not a firmware upgrade can tell the tuner to look at both bands. My guess is that it can process both bands because they are so close together that I don't think there would be any hardware limitation.

Sirius originally applied for usage rights of the bands currently used by both XM and Sirius. The FCC would not give them that whole band and instead gave them half, shortly after, XM came along and the other half was given to them. Because it was originally their intention to use that whole band, they may have designed their hardware to work with both bands. Also, years ago Sirius went to XM because they wanted to merge, but XM didn't want to. It's clear that for a long time it has been Sirius's intention to combine the two bands. If everything I have said so far is correct, then I would suspect it is a similar scenario for XM, and therefore there would not need to be separate streams for Sirius receivers and XM receivers. Chris01720 06:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

To fix my previous statement, what I referred to as the "tuner" is actually the "baseband processor". I pretty positive the baseband processor and tuner are in the same small removable package. The rest of the radio (and what the baseband processor/tuner are in) is the head unit. For more info, visit http://www.answers.com/topic/sirius-satellite-radio?cat=biz-fin and go down to the section labeled "Receiver Technology". Chris01720 02:30, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XM Branding and Corporation to be kept

Can someone include this?

http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/fetchFilingFrameset.aspx?FilingID=4980805&Type=HTML

70.64.50.221 14:35, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Done --Napnet 20:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

That's not exactly what the filing says. THe filing says that The new corporation will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Sirius, which will have the brand name. So, in effect, Sirius will own XM. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 23:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please cite the specific text in the filing that says that either the XM "brand" will survive, or that the Sirius "brand" will survive? My reading of the filing is that Sirius is creating a subsidiary, which will be merged into XM, which will be owned by Sirius. But the fact that a company named XM will still exist, or that a company named "Sirius" will still exist, says absolutely nothing about what the brand names will be. From what I can tell, Sirius and XM have said nothing concrete about how the post-merger products will be divided, combined, marketed, branded or anything else, other than some vague comments about enhanced services and ala carte options. I think that saying that the either the XM or the Sirius "brand" will "be kept" is unsupported by the current information, and should be deleted from the article. 72.88.248.252 01:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I just added a note with cite that both XM and Sirius brands will be kept. 72.88.248.252 02:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is a question. XM is associated with Clear Channel, the much disliked conglomerate that owns a huge number of radio stations in America. Sirius is not. After the merger, how does Clear Channel fit into things?

CC's existing contract with XM ends in 2008. The merger probably won't be complete until 2008. At a guess, I'd say that, in a bid to save bandwidth, CC won't fit in to the new scheme of things. Of course, that's speculation. Nobody really knows the answer yet. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 17:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linking to wikinews

I appreciate everyone's enthusiasim with wikinews here, but ther's a few things.

• You can not copy wikipedia content to wikinews (for copyright issues). However you can copy wikinews stuff to wikipedia (if anyone wants the long and involved full why explanation please say so, and I'll tell you)
• Wikinews articles should not be linked to until published (I published it now though so that doesn't matter)
• Wikinews articles aare not works in progress. This means updating them as suggested in source proablly won't work.
• When linking please use {{wikinews|article here}} on {{wikinews2|article1|article2}} for 2, or {{wikinewshas}} for multiple articles
  • If the wikinews article is very supplementary to this article, I geuss you could use the standard see so and so template, but you'd have to have a good reason/the article must really supplement this one.

Bawolff 08:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines on Wikinews says that if you have an ongoing thing (like this merger), to create a master page that links to all of the articles. My plan is publish more articles as new items as they come. At that point, I'll link to the master page, rather than the individual articles. Or I could just link to the articles directly from here. The whole point is to avoid turning this article in to a series of news articles, since someone objected to that. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 16:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thats okay. Bawolff 21:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current events

Plenty of current event articles have a news timeline. Here's just one example: Global_spread_of_H5N1.

The whole point of this article is to have a synopsis of the current status of the merger. The only way to do that is to link to news sources. I really don't want to edit war over this, but unless you find a better way to keep this stuff, I will keep adding it right back in, just like it is.

If someone out there wants to take a stab at doing a better job of formatting the current events section, then please do. But simply removing it is not servicing the Wikipedia readers. Every edit should be an improvement; removing the current events section is not.

If I'm wrong, someone please tell me. As it is, just saying "this isn't encyclopedic", without pointing to relevant policies, isn't doing anybody any good.

-- TomXP411^[Talk] 05:23, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

and another 2006 Ipswich murder investigation

one more Nuclear_program_of_Iran#Timeline]

I believe this establishes precedent.

-- TomXP411^[Talk] 05:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

There's already a timeline for the merger. Can't this just go there, with less focus on news-like items?--digital_me 06:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's the relevant policy you were looking for at WP:NOT. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. In this case, Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories (see subpart 6). That's what Wikinews is for. Hope this helps. Bumm13 06:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That's exactly what I'm looking for. I have removed any minor news blips and have linked to the Wikinews article that IS summarizing daily news on the issue. All information in this article is verifiable, and I hope I'm touching the important points in the merger without getting into the day to day minutae that will likely change over time anyway. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 06:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the rewrite, AKMask. That's definitely an improvement. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 05:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to AKMask's great re-write, I think we have a section that both covers the highlights (to date; there'll be more to come as the Congress, The FTC, the FCC, the SEC, and the stockholders all make their opinions known) and is encyclopedic. I'm going to close the RfC. -- TomXP411^[Talk] 05:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Switching order of names/pictures

Don't you think that making anonymous edits just to re-order the pictures on the page is a little petty? I'm trying to make the article as neat and professional as possible, and part of this means that we're consistent with the ordering of the names. If you think Sirius is better than XM, or the opposite, then you have a right to an opinion, but please stop making petty edits to the page just to reinforce your POV.

-- TomXP411^[Talk] 05:59, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, although complaining about editing wars probably won't stop the problem, however I've got an idea that might. Instead of arbitrarily listing them in one order or another to begin with, perhaps list them alphabetically. This way, NPOV is preserved, and personal preference can not be cited as the reason for the order. Spazure 08:27, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Senator Arlen Specter

I thought that Senator Arlen Specter said, in March, on the Howard Stern Show that congress would make a decision on the merger by the end of the month, not the FCC (as stated in the article). Chris01720 (talk) 02:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't know. Can you locate any transcripts or documents that would prove that bit wrong? It does seem suspect. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 02:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Milestones

what exactly is meant by "The following milestones have been set for the merger"? Who set these? Is this a schedule set by some regulatory body? Set by XM and Sirius? Or are they simply milestones that have been reached along the way. I've not seen any indication that there are set dates that must be met for some reason, especially for regulatory approval. IT happens when it happens.--Rtphokie (talk) 11:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)