Sirius Satellite Radio also filed a document with the SEC this week with regard to overpowered satellite-to-FM transceivers and its role in developing and marketing them. Check this:
[C]ertain Sirius personnel requested manufacturers to produce Sirius radios that were not consistent with the FCC’s rules. As a result of this review, we are taking significant steps to ensure that this situation does not happen again….
“Willful and repeated” violation of the rules is a factor the FCC is supposed to weigh when assessing penalties against violators. There’s been at least three months’ worth of correspondence between all parties on this issue. Both XM and Sirius have admitted to the marketing of non-compliant equipment. Sirius, to its credit, has gone a step further. There’s irony in the fact that satellite broadcasters have done more to encourage the proliferation of microradio technology than any hell-raising kit-maker could ever hope to.
However, FCC enforcement cases involving corporate piracy of the airwaves never seem to contain the same prosecutorial zeal as that found in those involving more stereotypical defendants. The NAB will want a proverbial head on a stick. Perhaps the drafting of consent decrees has already begun.
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