Not that SiriusXM needs any more bad publicity, but now they are ticking off some of their most loyal customers by promising included access to higher-quality on-line streams and then not delivering.

While the reason is as yet unclear, there seem to be two possible yet mutually-exclusive possibilities; 1) They technically screwed-up and are currently prohibiting their customers from accessing the streams inadvertently, or 2) only the low-quality 32kbps stream is included in the long-term “lock-in” requiring a payment of $2.99 for the “Premium” streams. The latter could cause the company a problem, though, as customer service representatives told many of those who paid for long-term commitments they would be receiving the higher-quality streams as part of their package.

Either way, it’s yet another black eye for the satellite radio carrier, upsetting even some of the most ardent XM “fanboyz.” I’ll be updating this as information arrives; stay tuned.