[6][12] In April 1992, she resigned as chairman and CEO of Sirius in order to start a medical research foundation, focused on finding a cure for her daughter's illness.

[13][14] Six months later, in November 1992, Rogers Wireless co-founder David Margolese, who had provided financial backing for the venture, acquired control of the company and succeeded Briskman.

[18] In 1997, after Margolese had obtained regulatory clearance and "effectively created the industry," the FCC also sold a license to XM Satellite Radio, which followed Sirius's example.

[19] In November 1999, Marketing chief Ira Bahr convinced Margolese to again change the name of the company, this time to Sirius Satellite Radio, in order to avoid association with the soon-to-be-outdated CD technology.

[17] Sirius launched the initial phase of its service in four cities, with the first receiver sold at Cowboy Maloney's in Jackson, MS[20] on February 14, 2002,[21] expanding to the rest of the contiguous United States on July 1, 2002.

"[23] The first confirmed music transmission from satellite to radio receiver for Sirius was September 1, 2000, in NYC at the current HQ of SiriusXM.

[32][33] Stern said his move was forced by the stringent regulations of the FCC whose enforcement was intensified following the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy.

[39] In August 2003, Sirius partnered with Clearwater, Florida-based Applied Media Technologies Corporation, a provider of telephone "on hold" messaging.

The highly elliptical orbit of the Sirius satellite constellation can pose difficulties for the reliable delivery of the signal to stationary antennas in certain parts of the country.

To eliminate this potential problem, Sirius launched a new geostationary satellite, FM-5, to improve service to non-mobile customers such as those of SiriusXM for Business.

In addition to the audio programming, the Sirius broadcast stream also carries a Data Services channel that is utilized by capable receivers and graphical display hardware.

The technology for Sirius Satellite Radio receivers as well as some of the uplink equipment, and the studio encoder, originated at Bell Labs in the late 1990s and subsequent years.

The studio encoder was a result of Bell Labs' efforts in statistical multiplexing of perceptual audio coded signals, a cousin of the MP3 standards.

Linkabit, then run by Irwin Jacobs prior to his involvement with Qualcomm, offered such a codec for rack mounting in satellite earth stations.

Since Sirius and XM separately entered the market with incompatible waveforms on the satellite, one would logically conclude that the merged company will eventually evolve the signal format again to take advantage of their size, but this is a speculative statement.

The use of a satellite and terrestrial combined service has been adopted by the DVB-SH standard, and companies such as ICO communications who cooperated with Alcatel-Lucent on system design and field trials.

The baseband processor utilizes a 16MB SDRAM memory to buffer four seconds of one of the satellite signals in order to bring it into time coincidence with the other for Maximal-ratio combining.

The front-end of a Sirius receiver is called the head unit, required to display descriptive text (such as the category, channel, artist, and song name) and provide controls to the user.

The original facility was located on the roof of the building housing the Sirius studios in Rockefeller Center in New York City but has since been decommissioned.

Radiosat 4, built as a ground spare for the now-decommissioned elliptical mission, was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in October 2012.

[58] The Radiosat 6 (FM-6) satellite was launched on October 25, 2013, and was put in a geostationary orbit at 116.15° West which services the western half of the United States.

[59] As of 2005[update], Sirius receivers were available for various new Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Lexus, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mercury, MINI, Mitsubishi, Scion, Toyota (except Corolla), Porsche, Volkswagen, and Volvo vehicles, and the service plans on adding availability for portable use.

Both alternatives have gained popularity with streaming listeners, and offer artist and track name information updated in real time, which is an improvement from the online Sirius player.

It offers a server capability to stream Sirius and XM programming to game consoles and mobile phones as an alternative to the iPhone And Blackberry app.

NiceMac LLC, creator of the StarPlayr and StarLightXM product lines have created clients for Mac, PC, Windows Mobile and iPhone.

In 2006 it offered a lifetime plan to subscribers that for a $549 fee it would unlock the top tier channels for unlimited use on any Sirius device, including the Internet and phone.

[64] In September 2009, The Federal Communications Commission agreed to Sirius XM's request for a special temporary authority to operate 20 terrestrial repeaters for the satellite radio service in Puerto Rico.

[65] The commission did so over the objections of the Puerto Rico Radio Broadcasters Association (Asociación de Radiodifusores de Puerto Rico), who said the approval expands the Sirius XM reach outside its authorized coverage area and would allow Sirius XM to compete with terrestrial broadcasters for listeners.

[65] After receiving communications by public officials in opposition to the broadcasters, such as Puerto Rico Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock, in rejecting those arguments, the commission said Sirius XM's footprint already covers the island but the signal is weak and blocked by tall buildings and foliage.

The Sirius full terrestrial coverage is available in select sites in the cities of San Juan, Carolina, Bayamón, Cataño, Caguas and Ponce.