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"And if you renew now, you can continue to listen online FREE for the entire length of your subscription. Here's what they actually said in their e-mail last winter: Trouble is, the information Sirius XM sent me, and presumably thousands of others, last winter, never made clear that we'd receive a lower-quality feed if we locked in.
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When I contacted Sirius XM, as a Consumer Reports representative, about the discrepancy between what they promised us and what we're getting, a spokesperson told me, "All subscribers were notified the XM Radio Online platform would be upgraded as of March 11 to a higher quality digital audio and would no longer be included as part of a base satellite radio subscription at no charge."
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The add-on is needed even if, like me, you're one of Sirius XM's most loyal subscribers, who extended your subscription this past winter for a year or two in return for free online access until your contract ran out.Īnother tidbit Sirius XM didn't tell those of us who locked in last winter: Our free extended online access is limited to their lower-grade 32k streaming audio, not the higher-quality 128k digital that Premium subscribers now get. If you're a subscriber with a basic plan who wants to stream your favorite shows, you must pay $2.99 extra per month, the add-on price for the "Premium" subscription, to listen with your iPhone (or iPod Touch) past the 7-day free trial. That's despite complaints that the software doesn't allow you to stream such popular shows as Howard Stern and both MLB and NFL play-by-play, and Nascar radio.Īlso, being a regular Sirius XM subscriber isn't enough to use the app to access content. Sirius XM's free radio application for the iPhone has been downloaded more than a million times since its June release, the company recently crowed.
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