In-Home Satellite Radio Moves Are Being Set At CES
By Amy Gilroy -- TWICE, 1/8/2002
LAS VEGAS - With XM Satellite Radio just beginning to penetrate the car audio market with 30,000 subscribers and even before Sirius Satellite Radio launches its service next month, momentum is starting to build for satellite radio in the home.
Kenwood is announcing here the first home-based satellite radio product. The company said its new Sovereign Entre Entertainment Hub would be capable of receiving Sirius' 60 music channels via the Internet through an agreement between Kenwood, Sirius and OpenGlobe. The new Entre is a digital component with a 20GB hard drive and built-in CD recorder. It stores and streams compressed music files, Internet radio and Sirius' commercial-free audio channels and can distribute them to other rooms in the house. The suggested retail price of the Entre is $1,800. When Sirius' service via the OpenGlobe Web portal will begin has yet to be announced.
Jensen is showing here the first satellite-radio-enabled boom box -a Sirius-ready unit that has an AM/FM tuner and CD player. It has the capacity for an external home Sirius antenna and has a full text display for Sirius channels and other information. Called the model SRB2003, it is expected to ship in the fourth quarter at a price to be announced.
XM Satellite Radio president and CEO Hugh Panero said that Sharp is currently developing a home-based XM-ready component and other XM partners may also offer home products. Although Sony and Pioneer said they had no plans to announce dedicated home satellite radio products at this time, Sony said it was seeing an unexpectedly high attachment rate of over 40 percent for the home audio add-on kit for its transportable XM car system. Sony explained that with its system, users only pay one subscription fee to receive XM service in both the home and car.
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