XM Satellite Radio

If I could give them zero stars, I would. I purchased a lifetime subscription ($ 780) back in 2013 for a dodge ram I had. That truck ended up being a lemon so I sold it. The next vehicle I purchased did not have sirius xm radio (go figure. Every vehicle these days has it now).
I just purchased my new vehicle that is equipped with sirius xm radio. Figuring I payed for a lifetime subscription already, I could just transfer it onto my new truck. WRONG! I spoke to a woman named «Olga». She stated that my lifetime subscription was for a built in unit. Not a portable unit. I asked what does that matter? A lifetime subscription is a lifetime subscription. She stated if I had a portable unit, I could have up to 3 transfers. However I had a built in unit. This means I have zero transfers. Furious, I demanded to speak to a manager. She continued to argue with me in order to try and prove her point that I was wrong and she was right. Tired of listening to her crap, I hung up without even speaking to a manager. I will never pay for Sirius xm radio again. What a rip off of a company!

Nightmare! Had this on my motorcycle and it was OK– not great. Decided to cancel — what a nightmare. Dealing with CSR’s who are rude, stall and just plain difficult. Over 30 min of my life lost trying to cancel ended up doing it by chat — more of my life wasted. NEVER AGAIN — STAY AWAY — NOT WORTH IT
IF THERE WERE ONLY NEGATIVE STARS

The absolute worst company I have ever dealt with. While you have your subscription they are not so bad, but forget about any sort of cancellation.
After five years of being a «valued» customer the time came for me to drop Sirius/​XM
due to a change in vehicles and financial situation. THEY WOULD NOT LET ME CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION. After about 25 minutes on the phone and a lot of aggravation they ended up hanging up on me and never cancelled my account.
DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THIS COMPANY AND I RECOMMEND SELLING ANY STOCK YOU HAVE, WITH THIS KIND OF ACTIVITY THEY WILL FAIL…
If you happen to be a Sirius/​XM employee and dont believe my rating and complaint. Please feel free to listen to your phone call dated March 3, 2014 at 6:42 pm.
To all who love them, just see what happens when you try to cancel. Felt like a hostage.

Talk Talk Talk. I can listen to idiots babble about irrelivant celebrity shit, promotional commercials, whats on stupid dummed down TV and talk over the music for FREE with standard terrestrial radio. Some people are not insecure pussies who need to feel «kept company» by human dialog when they are alone. Some of us actually like to hear this stuff called music and don’t need «radio life coaches» guiding us through life telling us what to like and dislike etc.
More corporate programming and behavior modification for the «sheeple» of the world brought to you by Cirius, who, by the way, bought XM (a once great radio service) and trashed it up for the dumb dumb masses. IDIOCRACY…

I have been an XM customer at the premier level for several years, then got divorced and a new car, and the Indian woman who tried to help me ended up assuming we were married and re-​merged my account with my ex-husband’s, then fixed it but couldn’t manage to get his name off the account. When I said that that wasn’t OK with me (what divorced woman wants to get mail addressed to the ex in your new non-​marital home???), she then explained that I should be happy because they don’t recognize divorce in India, and at least in my country I can be divorced (seriously?)!
Even the manager I waited more that 20 minutes to speak to couldn’t get me a new account that I could access online without issues. After an hour on the phone, I gave up. I will use the free trial on my new car and then I am DONE! I don’t recommend getting involved until they get US support that has a clue. I’ll just use my iphone music to listen in the car — no biggie and way cheaper than this service. Run away…

Worst company in the world. A call takes three hours and no one cares about helping you. They call you 100x about a bill that doesn’t exist.

The bullshit is out. Got a free subscription when bought a new car. Didn’t plan on keeping but it was good. My wife’s car expired in January, got a promo for 50% off and refused. Then I got a 71% off for 4.17 a month. Told wife to call and. Ask if they will give me 2 years at 4.17 and they said no. I then called and asked for mgr, mgr said she couldn’t offer more than promo even if paid in full now. Both of my cars now can receive non pay and as for me my stock in xm are for sale. Business model is really not right. Maybe they should treat customers first since I paid taxes to have their satellite to be in space once. Then pay again to hear. Where is the justice? See also «Sirius xm forums» on google.

Background:
XM offers subscription satellite radio content. You sign a contract, pay a fee, and provide your receiver serial number to receive service. Subscription offerings include monthly and annual terms. Access to XM programming from a web browser is included with some packages. Receivers can be bought through retail technology outlets or may be built-​in to factory sound systems provided with some cars. I recently cancelled my subscription.
Pros:
XM provides a landscape of broadcast sound including a panoply of music and voice programs. For example, there are at least 6 country music channels. There are several comedy channels ranging from tame to pleasantly vulgar. There are many voice programs including Cosmo Radio, C-​Span, BBC World Service, MSNBC, Road Dog Trucking, Fox News, and NPR. During the US presidential election, they had a channel dedicated to election programming. You can get this variety of stuff anywhere with a view of the sky. Check XM’s web site to find out if their current programming fits your interests and taste. The service may be especially valuable for linehaul truck drivers or people who live in remote areas without terrestrial broadcasting.
Radio frequency received signal level (RSL) varies widely depending on factors including terrain, humidity, foliage, and nearby buildings. I routinely got reception inside a reinforced-​concrete parking garage with no view of the sky. To someone with radio signal propagation experience, this seemed improbable. Apparently there were reflected signals getting into the garage from metal parts of nearby buildings. Signals were reliable throughout the western US in places with a good view of the sky.
Cons:
XM doesn’t pass the smell test. I think the billing for XM is ethically-​indifferent.* They quote you a price for the service. After signing up, you find out they automatically renew your subscription forever unless/​until you call to cancel. Like a certificate of deposit, if you miss the cancellation window, you must pay for another interval. For example, if you have a yearly subscription and call to cancel after the one month cancellation window, you must pay the subscription for another entire year. There is no business reason for doing this except to pump the subscription statistics. They include other billing surprises such as billing you $ 2 to send you an invoice. I can assure you there are more surprises, just sign up for the service to find out about them. An ethical company would quote you the whole price with no dirty tricks or surprises. Another surprise: the fees changed over the subscription period. They sent me a letter six months before the subscription expired telling me fees would change but it didn’t cite the new rate.
Based on the calibrated ear, XM uses different coding, or quantization, rates for voice and music programming. While music channels sound decent, voice programs have an annoying, ringy characteristic similar to some wireless phone connections with lossy compression. There is a finite amount of bandwidth, so using compression and lower coding rates is reasonable from an engineering standpoint. People accustomed to sketchy streaming web audio and lower-​tier phone service will have no problem with XM’s voice program sound quality. They’re not what I’d call broadcast quality. Music channels are much better and comparable in quality to higher-​rate MP3 coding, in my opinion.
Received signal level (RSL) varies widely. On acquisition of the satellite data stream, it takes about 5 seconds for the receiver to start decoding your selected music stream. If the bit error rate gets too high, the speakers go quiet until your receiver gets 5 seconds of good data. On my receiver, there are no pops, clicks, or other transients when the signal is lost or reacquired. The system is likely to have a footprint: places on the map with the highest signal strength. Customers don’t know what areas are included in this footprint. I found poor reception in the US northeast during summer. For example, reception was unusable in wooded areas of upstate New York. I attribute this to a combination of foliage attenuation and humidity. I believe 2 GHz signals are affected by water vapor. There are mysterious signal drop-​outs from time to time. I don’t know what causes them. These may be due to leaky microwave ovens or other terrestrial signals that are stronger than the satellite signal. It may also be due to system maintenance work. These complicated systems are always being tuned and adjusted so your reception will continually vary.
* I pilfered the phrase, ‘ethically indifferent,’ from the comedy group Firesign Theater.
05/​27/​2013: I guess it’s no surprise: while they charge you $ 2 to mail you an invoice, they don’t charge you anything for the ‘tons’ of advertising they send. It also turns out they have a terrestrial transmitter on Sutro Tower here in the Bay Area. No wonder the signal works in some parking garages!

Real Jazz 67 is playing way to much artist interviews and little music. This service is slowly becomming not worth it.

After not having XM for the last year or so, i signed up again when we got a car with an XM radio in it. I actuallyforgot how much I liked the service. Aside from the joy of listening to Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez, it’s great to have so many music choices when you’re driving. XM absolutely beats the piss out of FM, that’s for sure. Whether it’s worth it or not is up to you. We got a 1 year deal for $ 77 bucks which is definitely fair, though I think the regular price is about $ 15 a month which is a bit on the high side in my opinion.

SON OF A !@#$%! I really thought I would be the first to review satellite radio. Stupid Unilocal.This wouldn’t happen with the other review sites! :-)
Anyways, what I thought was a nice 6 month perk for my new lease turned out to be something I can’t live without. Thank you Sirius for giving me access to two musical forums that I can’t get regularly in Los Angeles — Salsa and Blues. Man, do I love you!
I almost knocked a review for all the stupid talk crap that you seem to have on three out of four stations, but still, love that you give me salsa and blues, not to mention two stations dedicated to 80s and 90s. That’s pretty cool too. I think I will actually pay the $ 14 a month fee. Well done, XM!

Their satellite radio service? It’s great. I couldn’t be happier with it. I’m a Southern California commuter who can easily drive 100 miles a day and listening to XM helps pass the time on the road.
The fees? They are pretty high. And since they took away the free internet radio and began charging separately for that, I stopped using it.
Their website? Its good for most things, but not account transfers. You have to call customer service for that.
Their customer service? That’s another story entirely. From my experience, don’t call any other number but 1−800-XMRADIO.
Here’s what happened. I had totaled a car in ⁹⁄₂₀₁₁ that had an annual renewing subscription to XM, and it just renewed on ¹¹⁄₂₀₁₁. I tried using the website in order to transfer my subscription from wrecked car to my new one and then turn off the service to the car I don’t own anymore, but I couldn’t. On the website, they give you another number that starts like 866 to call for transfers. What a nightmare! The first time I called, his accent was so thick, I couldn’t understand the man. I ended up hanging up on him. The second time I called, again I got another man with a thick accent and he hung up on me. Is this customer service? My frustration level peaked! The third time I called, I got a female who seemed like she knew what she was doing on the telephone up to the point when she tried to charge me a transfer fee. I told her I’m a US customer and the transfer fee was an undisclosed fee I do not have to pay and then I asked to be transferred to customer service in the United States. She tried twice to reduce or remove the transfer fee, but she said she could not. I asked again to be transferred to customer service in the United States. Finally, I was transferred to what I found out later in the third call was the Omaha, Nebraska customer service center. Then the customer service on the phone was great! He told me what he was doing on my account step-​by-​step transferring my unused balance to my new radio, turned off the old one, and he offered me a better price annually than the advertised price. The third customer service call I made took over 30 minutes, mainly due to the fact that the female I contacted initially was stalling trying to get an extra fee out of me. He profusely apologized for the poor service I received from their overflow site in Singapore and told me in the future to only call 1−800-XMRADIO.

I can’t complain too much about XM Satellite Radio. I won a free 1– year subscription in the past with the player and a walkman travel device as well and it was great. I listened to it alot in the beginning but then I stayed on as a paying customer and really did not listen to it at all. It got to the point where I would count how many times I turned on the actual player every two months or so.
I believe the prices now might actually be better since the merger with Sirius but I have not kept up with them. I do kind of miss the Opie and Anthony show. That was one of my favorites. I also did pass by the Sirius radio studios very frequently at one point since I worked right there in the Rock Center area. I guess that is one thing I miss all the celebrity sightings when coming home from work. I felt like the service was pricey at the time since I knew I definitely was not using it, so I cancelled it. Now on cable tv (Time Warner) you get to basically hear whatever you want now so if I really wanna hear again, I could just tune in.

For years, I have thought of satellite radio as a great concept that somehow just never caught on. Perhaps it’s the thought of paying for radio, but for whatever reason, the general public has not embraced the concept. Regardless, every time I was on a business trip and had a rental car with XM or Sirius (now merged), I absolutely loved it.
Now that I have XM in my car, I am really enjoying it. As always, nothing beats free and in my case, the car came with it free for either 30 days or three months. Amazing variety of channels and I love the fact that there are no commercials. My taste in music is highly eclectic and I love how they’ve got it covered. The comedy is hilarious too… I need to hit those channels more often.
I was surprised to hear that my car was equipped from the factory with bluetooth and a USB for an ipod, but with XM, I don’t think I’ll be needing it. Will definitely subscribe when my free trial runs out.

Satellite Radio.
I am lucky in that I have XM in my office all day– I worked a deal with the maintenance guys to put an antenna on the roof in exchange for a new laser guided saw they wanted in their shop. wink wink.
In any case, I get to listen to non-​stop music all day. It is not too much of a tall tale to say this is probably the one thing that prevents me from going postal and slaughtering the collection of idiots that work here…
Thank you XM for keeping my coworkers safe and me out of the pokie.

Customer sercie is really bad
Music is low qaulity, the songs repeat like no tommorow and they want you to pay for it :(if the music was better quality then maybe but now NO

I have had XM for 6 years. They have recently merged with Sirius Satellite Radio.
First off I have had the same unit the entire time I have been a subscriber. I have dropped it in parking lots and had to put it back together more times than I can count. they really hold up very well.
My husband has been a subscriber to Sirius Satellite Radio for the same amount of time. He has had to replace his radio three times in 6 years.
As to the merger. The FM frequencies that you have to use in the car for the radio to be heard really suck for Sirius. Before the merger went through I barley had to change the frequency while I drove. Now I have to change it every 10 miles or so and they are mostly staticky no matter what. That was the problem my husbands radio had before the merger.
I used to make fun of my husband because I thought Sirius was crap compared to XM. Now I think XM is on the same crap train.
I still love Opie & Anthony and my favorite Ron & Fez (12 to 3 in the east). The one thing from the merger that I’m really happy about is the combination of Hard Attack (originally on Sirius) is now Liquid Metal. Hard Attack was my favorite thing about Sirius. Now XM has Jose and that can only make XM better in my book.

Regular radio in NYC is unlistenable, so I love my XM.
Mostly I listen to 202 for Ron and Fez, and Opie and Anthony, but they have great music channels too and the tune select feature is absolutely fantastic– my XM receiver detects when a band i like is playing on any channel, alerts me, and gives me the option to switch to that channel.
XM has a lot of drawbacks, but until I find some other way to hear great programming in my car, its the best option out there.

Listening to radio in the Hartford market is just a joke. They have no good morning shows at all. If I try and listen during the day its nothing but commercials with occasional music.
I got XM about 4 years ago when Opie and Anthony resigned and it was the best decision I could have made. I listen to Opie and Anthony in the morning followed by Ron and Fez middays. After work and on weekends is when I get my music in. Depending on the mood I am in I either listen to Alt Nation Ch 47 (formally Ethel) or Octane Ch 48 (formally squizz).
They also have a bunch of great stand-​up comedy channels that I listen to, and during they summer they carry every baseball game. Definitely worth the investment!

XM is awful… I had it for 3 years… the music stations repeat songs too much and the only reason I purchased it, was for Ron and Fez.
The customer service reps seriously suck too! I cancelled in October 2007, and the lady said she would give me 3 more months free, to see if I change my mind. I told her I was not interested, but she did a good job of convincing me to take the FREE offer. Well 3 months later I get a bill!!! I call, they apologize and take it off… or so they say.
One month goes by and it is still on my card. I call back and demand that they take it off! They said ok no problem, one week later it is still on my card! Finally on my third call they took it off and I do not miss that mess of a company at all!