If you're an XM subscriber, there's a high chance your radio was silent today and yesterday. For the second day in a row, the satellite radio giant was experiencing a huge service outage due to a botched software upgrade of some sort to one of their four satellites. Now, however, they have released a statement on their site saying the problem has been fixed. A firmware upgrade gone wrong? A patch not tested thoroughly enough? Whatever the reason, it isn't as simple as swapping out a hardware component when your unit is in space:
"We quickly identified the problem and are working hard to return to our normal levels of service," the company said on its Web site Tuesday. "The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of our satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a loss of signal from one of our satellites."
XM has made statements saying they are not sure how many were affected, but that online feeds were running normally. This cannot be good for them or for the satellite radio industry, which has been facing a tough market. For a while, now, Sirius and XM have been attempting to merge unsuccessfully.