After having my Sonos whole home audio system along with Rhapsody streaming over the Internet for more than a year, I can’t help but ponder something that most definitely has been asked before. Why aren’t we seeing service providers creating portable devices that can stream audio directly from a satellite?

Satellite TV/Internet exist. GPS devices fetch your location and map the location you’re heading to via satellite. It seems entirely plausible that one could make a portable device or a car head unit that is capable of accessing the libraries of your paid subscription service such as Rhapsody and stream that to you anywhere you are, regardless of lack of an internet connection.

We love being able to have virtually any track at our disposal while using the Sonos or downloading it to an MP3 player with Rhapsody to Go. It would be pure audio utopia to stream tracks to your car wherever you are. Get a song in your head – search it and play it instantly.

What do you see as the major hangups in this scenario? I’m not seeing satellite “bandwidth” as an issue as they already push HD channels out with full 5.1 audio tracks and high bit-rate video. Is it a safety issue where companies don’t want drivers distracted searching for a song? (Disclaimer like the GPS units would solve that!) Costs for deploying the satellites? Maintenance? I think the idea is great…but why have we not seen it yet?