Sirius XM Raising Prices; Consumers Reluctant to Buy Some CE Online;Blackberry 7 News
 

Sirius XM Raising Prices
Sirius XM will raise the price of its basic package next year, the company announced Wednesday.

According to the AP, the price will rise from $12.95 to $14.49 effective Jan. 1. The rate hike comes three years after the merger of the two companies; they had agreed with the government to not raise prices for three years as a condition of the merger.
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Consumers Seen as Reluctant to Buy Some CE Online
While a majority of customers do online searches to research electronics products, only about half of them actually buy the items online.

That's according to a survey released Thursday by NPD Group, called “E-commerce and Consumer Electronics: Online Shopping & Purchasing."

The survey found that customers are especially reluctant to purchase "traditional" CE products, such as televisions, through the web. Only 19 percent said they were "extremely" or "very likely" to buy a TV online, compared with 34 percent for a computer, 32 percent for an Ereader, and 29 percent for a tablet computer.

“It’s not surprising to see that so many consumers won’t buy TVs, smartphones, and other popular CE products online, despite using the Internet to perform basic product research,” Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD, said as part of the announcement. “Computers and other IT products have a much longer history online with a wider variety of outlets, including direct sales from manufacturers, for consumers to choose from.”
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BlackBerry 7 to bring Wi-Fi Hotspot functionality in Q4 2011
We had already seen a few bits and pieces that suggested BlackBerry 7 OS would arrive with support for Wi-Fi Hotspot, however now that the handsets have actually arrived—that feature seems like it cannot be found anywhere. Of course, with the way the US carriers seem to treat mobile hotspot services, that does not come as much in terms of surprise. That being said, according to this leaked internal screen capture from Sprint—it looks like that support will be coming (at least to Sprint branded BlackBerry 7 devices) during the fourth quarter. The functionality is tipped to arrive by way of the “first major” software update and at this time, the “fourth quarter” is the only timeframe noted.
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I will finally not renew as I put a new Kenwood setup in so I can listen to Pandora now:dance:

On a related note - I was at an AT$T retail store the other day and they casually mentioned that iPhone insurance will be going up to $199 on 10/17.

I take that as a sign the iPhone 5 release date is right around there. iOS5 is to beta 8 and close to Gold Master so it should drop on 10/10.

I will get an iPhone 5 when I can hack it and if I can keep my unlimited data plan.

I knew it was coming...as soon as the 3yr moratorium on increases was up.
Karmazin made the gov't his bitch on that merger.

They didn't raise the rates...but they added the royalty fee's. :lol:

For this reason, I went with the "lifetime" plan last year.

If you already have unlimited data, then you can keep unlimited data. If you're a new subscriber, you're fecked :kick:

Until your existing receiver craps out and you have to replace it...then it's another "lifetime" subscription fee :willy:

Nope.
You can transfer it up to 3 times IIRC.

Awesome as I like all the data I can use as I am on my iPhone now in stupid Medicare training with one of the companies I market, makes my day go faster.

For a $75 fee.