FCC Chairman Encourages Activation of FM Radio Receiver Built into Smartphones

Megalith

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While Ajit Pai will not be doing much about it (i.e., establishing a government mandate) because he is all about free markets, the FCC chairman thinks that smartphone makers should let people listen to FM radio over the air instead of forcing them to use streaming apps, which require Wi-Fi or cellular data. It is estimated that 44% of devices include FM chips but do not have them activated, and the majority of these are iPhones. Pai argues that FM radio is relevant for public safety, but is this really something to get fussed about?

Pai cited a NAB study that found only 44% of the top-selling smartphones in the United States had activated FM receivers as of last year. The vast majority—94%—of the non-activated smartphones are iPhones, according to the study. "We could be doing a lot better," said Pai, who was appointed as FCC chairman last month. "It seems odd that every day we hear about a new smartphone app that lets you do something innovative, yet these modern-day mobile miracles don’t enable a key function offered by a 1982 Sony Walkman." The activation of FM receivers in iPhones would have several benefits, including battery life savings, less data usage, and most importantly, the ability to receive emergency alerts over radio without service.
 
I could see this being a safety issue in the event of a public disaster - an FM transmission does not rely on a cellular network and does not get "bogged" down by everyone trying to use it. Besides this use, I wonder how many would us it? I listen to FM or AM in my car still. At the office, I don't really like to listen to music or talk shows as I'm working and don't want the distraction. I doubt a radio option on my phone would be something I would use.
For cell phone manufacturers, would assume they would need to add another antenna and have another device drawing on the battery.
Trying to get to a solid point: let the market decide if they want an FM receiver or not.
 
Note that to make use of those FM receivers you're required to plug in headphones/earbuds so, I'm sure that using some USB-C or Lightning based headphones will still work as long as they're actually plugged in - you can typically switch to the smartphone's speaker output and not have to actually use the headphones/earbuds to do the listening, however, but the cord of the headphones/earbuds doubles as the necessary FM antenna.

The chips that already handle the radio communications for cellular and GPS and Wi-Fi already have the FM functionality so, it's kinda stupid to disable that functionality and always has been. Whether or not consumers actually make use of it is irrelevant: in a situation where it could prove useful the manufacturer disabling the capability did so for no rational reason at all: the chip maker isn't charging them more to enable or disable it, it's typically done by the operating system firmware on the device.

I've made use of the FM chip in devices I've owned that had it enabled but not very frequently, the local stations here in Las Vegas suck IMO. I spend more of my time streaming other types of content and in the mornings I listen to FM99 back in southeastern VA where I was born and raised using their stream on TuneIn Radio.
 
The problem with the FM reciever is that the phone needs to have a wired headset connected to it as an aerial to actually get some reception. The phones I saw wouldn't even let you turn on the FM radio if there was no headset attached.
 
Right before the true smart phone revolution my buddy had a phone that had an FM transmitter in it. We could listen to music from his phone on my old 94 hondas stereo.

This had to be like 2008. The first iPhone was out if I remember but people were still using normal phones.
 
fuck that, that'll just add unnecessary cost to already expensive phones

Did you not read that basically every smartphone that's been made in the past 10 years has had an FM tuner built in as part of the Bluetooth/GPS/Wi-Fi chip? :confused:

Even the original iPhone technically had an FM tuner as part of the Wi-Fi/GPS circuit but Apple requested it be disabled by the chip maker (Broadcom) - hell, people had to pay to enable Bluetooth at one point with a firmware update on the first or second gen iPod touch models which was really lame.
 
I wouldn't use it. Only time I listen to the radio is in the car. At work or home it's Pandora or similar cause of the fewer commercials. He wants it enabled for emergency services? Please, who doesn't have internet access in some form? That emergency alert will get to them unless they're in the woods.
 
I wouldn't use it. Only time I listen to the radio is in the car. At work or home it's Pandora or similar cause of the fewer commercials. He wants it enabled for emergency services? Please, who doesn't have internet access in some form? That emergency alert will get to them unless they're in the woods.
Or if you've ever been somewhere like Santa Barbara during Halloween or another large gathering of people.

Data/Phone/text often have spotty reception because of the overloading of the network.

This makes lightweight sense because of that.
 
Or if you've ever been somewhere like Santa Barbara during Halloween or another large gathering of people.

Data/Phone/text often have spotty reception because of the overloading of the network.

This makes lightweight sense because of that.

In that situation then, one of those people are going to get the message and it'll be passed word of mouth if it's big enough of an emergency.
 
It's irrelevant for emergency messaging if talking about network congestion. The networks have different precedence levels for different type of traffic. When sending out cell network emergency messaging it has the highest precedence.
 
In a legal regard, not enabling the FM radio of the chipset could be considered censorship. Consider the free speech rights of talk radio.
 
Ahhhhh, this allows me to bring up one of my biggest pet peeves.

Why is HD radio not "a thing" yet???? It's been around for 15 god damn years and many many radio stations are broadcasting on HD Radio spectrums.

Yet....only select aftermarket radios have the ability built-in......15 years folks!

HD Radio has a website showing how many cars by each manufacture have HD Radio built-in.....it's a pathetic page. And even then, for many of them it's only on the top end trim of each model. You gotta get the whole navigation she-bang, the mid level and entry level trim doesn't have it.

q5FZDRC.jpg


/rant over
 
In a legal regard, not enabling the FM radio of the chipset could be considered censorship. Consider the free speech rights of talk radio.

Free speech on the radio? It's regulated....heavily, by the FCC. Hence why some people think it may not be a good idea to let the FCC have control of the Internet.

Radio stations mostly self censor to avoid the tax man.....but Canada went so far as to ban Dire Strait's Money For Nothing, those little faggots.

The music video completely removes the offensive verse...but we still love it.

 
I would wonder if enabling the FM receiver brings on more FCC taxes, regulations and testing. I would look at that first before jumping to any other conclusions.

Kinda like how the cable companies will charge you $10 more if you just get Internet and not basic cable. And they say basic cable is just $10. But then you get the basic cable and you realize because you have "cable tv" now, you get hit with another $10 in taxes and fees. So in the end it's cheaper to pay $10 more for internet by itself then with the "free" cable.
 
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Free speech on the radio? It's regulated....heavily, by the FCC. Hence why some people think it may not be a good idea to let the FCC have control of the Internet.

Radio stations mostly self censor to avoid the tax man.....but Canada went so far as to ban Dire Strait's Money For Nothing, those little faggots.

The music video completely removes the offensive verse...but we still love it.


No the loudmouth on the radio complaining that he can't get heard. Trying to quote this. Iconic video.
 
While Ajit Pai will not be doing much about it (i.e., establishing a government mandate) because he is all about free markets, the FCC chairman thinks that smartphone makers should let people listen to FM radio over the air instead of forcing them to use streaming apps

The whole point of the FCC is to make government mandates. If all he wants to do is hand out limp-wristed suggestions, he can do that from somewhere other than the FCC.
 
Makes me miss my old iRiver. That thing was awesome. Size of the classic ipod, chrome and black finish, it supported lossless codecs, had optical in and out, and had an integrated radio tuner.

It was my favorite mp3 player because with the laptop hdd inside it you could easily and cheaply upgrade the capacity and I like having my whole music collection with me.

But when you eventually got tired of it it was really nice to have the radio as an option.

The screen got smashed when I left it in my backpack and somebody must have kicked it or something. It still works. I used to be able to still use it by muscle memory without a screen. I even took it apart and looked up the screen model number with hopes to replace it but I didn't find anything. I still have it in a box somewhere.
 
I wouldn't use it. Only time I listen to the radio is in the car. At work or home it's Pandora or similar cause of the fewer commercials. He wants it enabled for emergency services? Please, who doesn't have internet access in some form? That emergency alert will get to them unless they're in the woods.

My car has a strange antenna system that is partially faulty and difficult to fix. I would love if my phone could do it instead. Well I guess it can but it's disabled.
 
In that situation then, one of those people are going to get the message and it'll be passed word of mouth if it's big enough of an emergency.
No thanks. The Santa Barbara shooting was enough word of mouth for one lifetime.

Dumbest thing I've ever read. No one knew what the fuck was going on. Misinformation was spread because of that suggestion.
 
Of the Android phones that I had, only my first Android phone, a Droid X, had the FM tuner enabled. My Samsung S3, LG G5, and currently my Moto Z didn't have it enabled. I barely used the feature.

No big loss. For emergencies, I have a SAME radio which can run off battery power, plus a hand-crank emergency radio that lives in the back of my car.
 
fuck that, that'll just add unnecessary cost to already expensive phones
LOL the cheapest of the cheap Chinese phones tend to have FM radio support without issue.

If it aint' actually free at this point to do then its so close to it as to be indiscernible.
 
The problem with the FM reciever is that the phone needs to have a wired headset connected to it as an aerial to actually get some reception. The phones I saw wouldn't even let you turn on the FM radio if there was no headset attached.
Isn't a quarter wave FM antenna like about 75 cm long?
 
I can see the carriers having the biggest influence on this. They want you chewing up as much data as possible so you'll hand over the cash for more. And unlimited plans are a scam. They will throttle the fuck out of you when you go over a ridiculously low amount of data. It all about the Benjamin's.
 
My HTC One M8 had FM radio and it was pretty handy when I just wanted to kill some time waiting for xyz without actually burning data or battery. I was just googling which new phones had this feature as I'm thinking of switching phones soon and wouldn't mind having it again.
 
Am I the only one that thinks apple may enable this feature (especially if free, or nearly free) and then advertise it as a cutting edge technology.

I'd still be down.
 
Why is HD radio not "a thing" yet????

Two words: licensing fees

"HD Radio" capable hardware costs a bit more than the traditional FM-only head units and receivers and there's additional cost per tuner chip for licensing fees to the greedy bastards that own the patents on the HD Radio technology. Radio stations have to pay to transmit it and then on top of those licensing fees the consumer is expected to pay fees to receive it (with the purchase of the more expensive receiving devices).

Radio still sucks for the most part and there's way too many ads nowadays compared to even years past, and more blowhards on talk radio even on the FM side of things too so HD Radio ain't going to gain any more traction than it already has.
 
I listed to the radio on my commute in the train every day, morning and evening.
I get the news, and music.

If I listen to a playlist, i'm always doing next, next, next... because its not what i want to hear right now, or its the same playlist for ever....
Also, I use Wifi as much as possible, and don't care about Data during my commute, so I use less than 10Mb a month of my mobile data.
thats almost entirely email notifications. My phone+data plan is 50Mb a month here, and it costs me $2 a month.
I get unlimited texts, and 5 hours of calls. (Personal phone, not for work).

One last thing thats good about FM radio, is that in the case of a terrorist attack, the Cellular networks are quite often cut, data and Cellphone networks, so that they can't be used to detonate any devices.
Blocking FM radio though, is very very difficult in a large city.

FM Radio should be enabled where possible, it IS a security bonus. and it doesn't use data.
Wired headphones obviously have to be connected, since they are also the aerial.

i would like to get TV over the air too, with no data used.
I'm thinking about setting up a longer aerial in my coat/jacket, to be able to receive TV, with a TV dongle of course. :)
 
I so want free FM/AM radio on my smartphone unless they start offering free wifi over the air for radio only. They have to find a way to give us FM radio without a headset, it just comes out of the phone speaker. Only SONY sells really good Walkman for todays generation that lets you listen to the radio and play mp3 music. Now the only thing is their prices are ridiculous, that is why I can't even get one. ugh. Would be nice if smartphone can find a way to give us free radio without wifi/cellular data.
 
I'd use it if it were enabled on my phone. Then I could finally get rid of my Sansa Clip+.
 
LOL the cheapest of the cheap Chinese phones tend to have FM radio support without issue.

If it aint' actually free at this point to do then its so close to it as to be indiscernible.

A lot of international phones sold in the US already had an FM tuner, which was specifically disabled on the US version (supposedly at the request of the major carriers, because it competed with data-eating streaming music and carrier-specific music services).

I used to have a t-mobile G2 (aka HTC desire Z) that could only access the FM tuner if I used a 3rd party ROM
 
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