I attempted to make a comment on the article U.S. Electronics Outlines Specific Open Access Proposal last night while I was at work, but the stupid internet policies at work suck and after typing for almost 15 minutes, all my work was errased with a single error message.

Figured I would come here and discuss it since it will probably be more noticed here and more easily discussed.

I agree with Tyler that many aspects of security for Sirius and the Consumer are missing in USEs proposal. However, there is something else that most people are missing, including Tyler. I spoke directly with Mrs Wallman in an interview over on Orbitcast, and the impression I got from her was exactly what was listed in this proposal. When they are talking about "Equality accross the board", there are ways to be equal but different. Let me explain.

By law, every car manufacture must sell their cars to the dealerships for the exact same price nationwide. Why then can you get a better deal at some dealerships? Because although they pay the exact same price as the dealership down the street, there are also things called volume incentives. If dealership A sells 5 cars a month, they will not get an incentive. Dealership B sells 50 cars a month and they get an incentive. This is not an exclusive agreement, because dealership A can always sell more cars and qualify for the same incentive as dealership B.

Get the picture?

And one of the things mentioned by Tyler was the fact of giving a subsidy upon the sale of the radio. They can do this, as long as they do it accross the board. And they can have adjustible subsidies, as long as they have specific qualifications and any company can meet those qualifications.
If a manufacture sells 100 radios in a month, they get X subisdy per radio, if a manufacture sells 500 radios in a month, they get Y subsidy per radio. This would satisfy the need to reward manufacturers based on success.

Here are my recomendations to suplement the proposal:
1. Sirius/XM retain the right to design and subsidize OEM radios on their own accord. OEM radios do not need to be Open Access. This leaves way too much variability and confusion to the company and the OEMs, and will allow Sirius/XM to meet any deadlines and specific specifications unique to certain OEMs.

2. The Open Access provision of the merger agreement goes into affect 3 years after the merger, to allow the company to be able to control the supply of radios during the critical time following the merger.

3. I agree with Tyler that Sirius/XM should be able to place requirements on any manufacture who signs up with them, as long as those requirements are equal accross the board. Dedicated customer service lines, etc etc etc. Again, it is fair as long as it is done across the board.