NL-Outsidethebox [confederation]

Canadians now have a satellite radio service of their own. XM Canada officially went on-the-air today, bringing Canadians more than 80 channels of commercial free, digital quality music programming, along with news, talk, and information, and more than 1000 NHL hockey games.

“Canadians have been waiting for XM, and we’re going to give them what they want -- superior choice, sound and signal quality,” says Stephen Tapp, president and COO of XM Canada.

Satellite radio has been available in the U.S. for several years, but because of the requirement for regulatory approval by the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission, the service was not offered to Canadian subscribers. Still, Canadians subscribed in numbers too large to ignore. Estimates of the current "gray market" --foreign subscribers not officially eligible for the service -- run from 5,000 to 10,000.

Licences were granted to two providers -- XM Canada and Sirius Canada) by the CRTC in June 2005. XM Canada was the first to bring the service to market with its November 25 launch.