USTelematics seals deal with Sirius

The connected car got a little more connected today as USTelematics, maker of the Voyager in-car IPTV/ media player/ web browser/ mobile wifi router, announced that it had signed up Sirius as a content partner. The deal means that owners of the Voyager will be able to access Sirius channels through a subscription, even if their car stereo is not equipped with a satellite radio receiver. (They will, of course, have had to invest the $800-$2100 for a Voyager system in the first place.) For Sirius, which has been struggling to get approval for its proposed merger with XM Satellite Radio for over a year, the tie-up is another example of how it is branching out from its core in-car business of delivering radio channels via car stereo. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, it unveiled its Travel Link service, which offers live traffic, weather information, gas station prices, sports scores, and movie times to the car, while earlier this month, XM unveiled a new in-car weather service, which will debut on the 2009 Acura RL and TSX. It is a pretty safe bet that we can expect to see more creative offerings from Sirius and XM as they try to compete with the forthcoming reality of the internet-connected car.