[ale] Wandering OT: Re: Car PC's and internet radio?

[Jim Popovitch]

On Wed, 2007-04-18 at 03:38 +0000, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> How does the radio get approved for use? How does it get approved for
> any type of subscription reception? What is to stop someone from
> canceling their subscription and still using the radio receiver? 

When you subscribe, you provide your radio's EIN number to the provider.
Shortly thereafter the provider broadcasts a code that your radio
recognizes and it enables functionality.  For instance on brand new
Sirius radio you can only get the channel #184 (weather) and
periodically interjected with vocal adverts for Sirius.  It's not a
stretch of the imagination that they can send a second code that
disables functionality when you quit paying your bill.  I bought the
lifetime subscription, so I can't find that out for you. ;-)

-Jim P.