older radios and a-la-cart

mcf57

Member
Dec 5, 2008
174
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I have a 4 yr old XACT PnP radio. It is currently deactivated, but recently they have been allowing access to about 6 channels. The selection seems to change daily & it seems to be some sort of promotion to try and get me to activate it again(see other post).

Anyway, my question is really this. If they can obviously allow only certain channels on my 4 yr old radio, why can they not offer some sort of a-la-cart offering for these older radios? It is clear that they are capable of handling this option.
 

JJS

Member
Oct 13, 2008
90
7
8
They're giving you their choice of channels on a promotional basis. It's the same group for all inactive receivers. They can also offer subscription tiers on old receivers, where a group of channels are subscribed or desubscribed together.

A la carte is your choice of individual channels, and older receivers have no internal programming to respond to those instructions from the activation server.
 

mcf57

Member
Dec 5, 2008
174
1
18
OK, then my point is if THEY can pick the channels from their system, why can't they simply offer a-la-cart where you basically tell them what channels you want over the phone or something like that? They in turn tell your old radio what channels to get through their system/equipment.
 

xan_user

Banned
Dec 16, 2008
3,234
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Nor-Cal
OK, then my point is if THEY can pick the channels from their system, why can't they simply offer a-la-cart where you basically tell them what channels you want over the phone or something like that? They in turn tell your old radio what channels to get through their system/equipment.

Im with you, seems really shady to me.
are the channel numbers different?

If they can block adult content channels, why not just let me block all the crap single artist/sport/talk i dont want to pay extra for and let me pay for what i DO want.

oh, wait that would be actual Customer Service. Im fairly certain those two words dont appear even on the same page in the new SXM manifesto.
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
27,227
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Toronto, ON
They simply don't want to administer a-la-carte. a-la-carte is a pet project of the FCC. They offered it to make the FCC happy. They made 1 radio to support it. This will probably be the ONLY radio that will support it. Its not that good a radio. Even if Sirius XM was truely behind a-la-carte, the pricing sucks. You would be better off getting mostly music $9.99.

a-la-carte pricing is and always will be the FCC's wet dream. You know how well it works on TV, it will work the same way on radio. It won't. Its simply too costly to implement widescale.
 

dhartsoc

Member
Jan 14, 2009
38
1
8
I guess that wouldn't seem so bad to me if the one ala carte radio wasn't a complete and total POS!

Its almost like they don't really want to sell a a la carte.
wtf?


What is wrong with the Starmate 5 that qualifies it as a POS? Just curious, don't own one. I'm still using a Sportster Replay and am getting tired of waiting for Sirius to offer some new radios.
 

xan_user

Banned
Dec 16, 2008
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Nor-Cal
What is wrong with the Starmate 5 that qualifies it as a POS? Just curious, don't own one. I'm still using a Sportster Replay and am getting tired of waiting for Sirius to offer some new radios.
I came from a sl100

blue only, hard to read display.
no night time dimmer.
bad remote.
no permanent direct tune.
no surfing. (see what on another staion before switching channels.)
feels rushed and cheap.
 

dhartsoc

Member
Jan 14, 2009
38
1
8
Given those deficiencies I would agree it isn't even a worthy replacement for my Sportster Replay. Hope my replay holds up. The Sportster 5 color screen really doesn't cut it for me.