I see that the new 997 will be XM Radio ready, but what about Sirius? I am sure that was planned before the Sirius buy out of XM, so I wonder if this is going to be re-thought.

The reason I bring this up is the general consensus is that the Sirius satellite technology is superior to that of XM and in all likelihood Sirius will eventually switch all the users over to their technology. Therefore I think it would be worth while to consider supporting both systems for the near term.

I have no experience with either of the satellite services except when the occassional rental car happens to have it. Really enjoyed no commercials and variety of music offered.

With the 997 offering the "XM Radio "Connect and Play"" feature what else would I need to do, besides pay the subscription fee, to receive this service at home? Is there a special antenna I would have to purchase? special cable from the antenna to the back of the 997?

I would say that it's too late now for a change.

Hmmm...

Wonder how this was planned to work for potential Canadian customers. Both Sirius Satellite Radio Canada and XM Satellite Radio Canada remain vibrant independent competitive companies - both with a mandate to showcase Canadian content. Will the XM Radio feature even work up here - or will there be special units made for the Canadian market? Just wondering.

This looks like the typical solution for receivers with XM support - you connect an XM-made antenna module. Does XM Canada use different hardware?

Many products (Brand "O" for example) support BOTH. XM or Sirius ready only means that there is a connector on the back that will communicate with an external tuner and allow the receiver or preamp to control the tuner and display metadata on the LCD or OSD. The XM and Sirius interface is really just an RS232 connection and although the connectors are different they are electrically similar. The only real difference is in the software protocol in the interface. In theory an XM ready radio could also connect to a Sirius tuner with an adapter cable and a firmware update.