A long drive along the freeway with great music playing over radio is great fun. But when you shoot past the radio coverage range, you are back to just driving and watching other vehicles go by.
Not anymore. Satellite radio with coverage range spread all over North America and Canada has revolutionized the way we get to hear our radio - with uninterrupted, crystal clear and commercial free music available anywhere you live and are driving to.
Satellite Radio
Satellite radio is broadcast through satellites perched in the geostationary orbit some 22, 000 miles over the earth. The reason for its wide coverage is the fact that a satellite covers a lot of geographical area as against traditional radio which are broadcast through towers which have a limited terrestrial range - across a city and its neighboring areas at the most.
The satellite radio signals are digital which ensure crystal audio clarity and absolute lack of static. The only apparatus you require to tune into satellite radio are a receiver, a satellite radio subscription and an antenna.
Advantages of satellite radio over traditional radio
Satellite radio has some major advantages over traditional radio such as:
Commercial free service: There are no pesky commercial breaks in between songs because satellite radio companies make their revenue through customer subscription fee and don’t require commercials for financial viability.
Static free quality: This is the best improvement over traditional radio. Since satellite radio use digital signals there is an absolute lack of static in broadcasting quality.
Wide geographical coverage: With satellite radio, you get uninterrupted crystal clear radio available anywhere in the continental North America and Canada.
Satellite Radio Service Providers XM And Sirius – A Comparison
XM and Sirius are two main satellite radio service providers in North America and Canada. Though these two companies are heading towards merger resulting in considerable synergy in operations, wider range of programming options, and faster rollouts of new technology, they are likely to remain two separate entities in near to medium term.
Since even after merger they will be separate competing entities, following is a comparison of services offered by them:
Satellite Coverage
From above discussion it is obvious that though there is little to choose from both these services, Sirius’ edge over XM in terms of sports coverage, talk radio & entertainment arena and Rock genre of music, which makes it a slightly better service than XM.
