IBiquity, the company behind HD Radio, is making enemies all over the place, the latest of which is Pioneer. The Japan-based corp, which makes the popular Inno, recently told the FCC [PDF] that iBiquity’s scheme to force satellite radio manufacturers to include HD Radio playback is absurd.
Says Pioneer:
The iBiquity conditions would limit the breadth of radio product offerings to consumers, limit which radio component suppliers’ products be designed into radios, have the effect of decreasing AM/FM tuning performance, unnecessarily increase costs to consumers uninterested in HD Radio and interfere with the useful and healthy free market mechanisms extant in radio electronics purchases
Pioneer added that, if iBiquity is so in favor of the free market yada yada yada, it should let consumers decide who the winner is, and not force Pioneer, which is in the satellite radio business, to include a competing service in its players.
And how many of you out there in Radioland own an HD Radio? I never saw the use, personally. In the car, a $10 tape deck connected to an iPod is heaps more useful, in my opinion.
via Orbitcast
