How does Slacker Satellite Car Kit work?

[aegrotatio]

I have been fascinated by the new service coming up from Slacker.com. Slacker is a store-and-forward music service which downloads music and playlists for a near-live experience. The data is normally transmitted via the internet but they are coming with a new service called Slacker Satellite Car Kit which claims to allow downloads of Slacker content while in a car via satellite.

Thing is, while they're pretty secretive about the system, the fact came out that Slacker is using Ku-band satellites to deliver data to the car receiver. It's not live content like XM or Sirius but is the same kind of store-and-forward that the home service uses.

They don't say if it's DBS or FSS, the speculation has only maintained that it is Ku-band and has a special car antenna, and is not S-band or L-band.

I haven't found pictures of the antenna yet but I don't think it's the large auto-aiming RV antennas that sell for hundreds of dollars, and I'm assuming it would be a phased-array antenna of some sort using immense forward-error-correction and redundancy (all hidden from the user).

Thoughts? Any more data on this receiver kit?

 

[charper1]

I assume they will lease and/or piggyback their compressed signal on some company's existing transponder(s)

From their site:

Slacker is Everywhere
For the first time, Slacker Personal Radio Players will enable music lovers to play personalized radio everywhere they go. The new devices include integrated Wi-Fi and an on-board Slacker DJ. The Slacker DJ combined with the new Slacker caching system guarantees personalized CD quality radio stations to be played everywhere, even when not in Wi-Fi range. Slacker customers get deep, personalized radio stations with optimized radio programming sequences, continuously refreshed and updated to include personalized new music.

Additional Slacker device features include:

* 4" full screen display featuring album art /reviews, artist photos/bios and visualizations
* Support for MP3, WMA and video as well as "saved" radio tracks
* Automatically save and refresh personalized stations via Wi-Fi, Satellite or USB

Slacker is currently in discussions with selected partners to provide Slacker Personal Radio through a broader range of devices in the future.

In the second half of 2007, Slacker device owners in the U.S. will have the option to purchase Slacker Satellite Car Kits that update the Personal Radio Player with new content through a breakthrough satellite broadcast system. Slacker car-top antennas receive high-speed music feeds from satellites throughout the continental United States, while the integrated Slacker DJ ensures favorite stations stay current.

 

[aegrotatio]

OK, that's all we know, but what kind of satellite technology will be used?
Ku-band, especially to a moving vehicle, is really hard to do without hundreds of dollars' worth of equipment (to judge from the RV auto-pointing antennas).

I want to know how they're going to accomplish this with a small automobile roof-mount antenna on the Ku-band.