[Swprograms] Satellite Radio Questions

["William Martin" <wgmartin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some questions came to mind while I was reading the recent
items in DXLD & etc. about the expansion of Sirius into Canada:

They're listing new channels being added, some for everyone
but with Canadian content, and some exclusively for the
new Canadian subscribers. Do these satellite-radio providers
have lots of spare bandwidth available to just add more channels
anytime they wish? Is it essentially infinite capacity?

Just how does this work? If you're a subscriber in Category A,
and you punch in channel number 199, you get program X. If
you're a subscriber in Category B and punch in 199, do you get
program Y -- something different on the same channel number?
So "A" could represent regular US subscribers, and "B" indicate
the new Canadian group of customers?

Is the channel number not a frequency selection at all, but just
a data entry pointing to a different data stream in the flood of
digital data coming from the satellite? And thus the "channel"
designations all depend on what you as a subscriber are
entitled to hear, depending on what you've paid for?

So could the channel numbers increase forever or do they
try to keep them all in the same number range by re-using
the designations for each tier or class of subscription?

Does XM work the same way as Sirius, just with different
encryption?

73, Will


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