“FCC chairman Ajit Pai has advocated for the activation of FM radio receivers built into nearly every smartphone, as part of opening remarks he made at the Future of Radio and Audio Symposium in Washington D.C. yesterday,” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors. “Many smartphones sold today, including iPhones, have an FM receiver built into the LTE modem that would allow people to listen to FM radio over the air; however, many carriers and phone makers have not enabled the functionality, forcing users to use an app to stream FM radio over Wi-Fi or cellular data.”
“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,” Rossignol reports. “The vast majority—94%—of the non-activated smartphones are iPhones, according to the study.”
Rossignol reports, “Pai said that while he will keep speaking out about the benefits of activating FM receivers in smartphones, he is a believer in free markets and the rule of law, and he thereby cannot support a government mandate requiring activation of these chips, nor does he believe the FCC has the power to issue said mandate.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Let the market decide… Oh, wait, it already has.
Paidiot
Where is the harm to the consumer if FM is activated?
The harm is for that bloated Apple Music or iTunes as well. I hate to say it, but one more thing to add to Apple greediness!
Yup…
This is a serious question: Does anybody have an idea what the effect would be on battery life if the modem chip was on constantly receiving an analog FM signal? I would think the impact would be quite different from receiving digital packets.
Why would it be on constantly… it will be on when its in use .
As for exact power consumption rate relative to receiving digital packets… no clue… but my gutt say it should be less on FM.
FM reception uses an average of 63% less power than LTE streaming. It does vary widely depending on the LTE signal, however. The reason is that when smartphones have a weaker LTE signal (“less bars”), they attempt to compensate for this by boosting power to the antenna and signal amplifiers. This can cause a noticeable or even dramatic effect on battery life, particularly if your device has only 1 bar of service. At times like this, the FM signal power consumption could be one-tenth of what the very weak LTE streaming process would be.
Personally, I don’t like the audio quality of analog FM. But I do see the benefit to some as far as battery life is concerned.
I would think that the FM chip can receive digital audio where available, but I could be wrong. Anyone know?
I’ve see bathroom & clock radios last for quite some tome on batteries. Not that they are iPhones, but still radios and probably less power efficient. I don’t think it’s a big deal. Just my 2 cents
Ug, jeez, darn iPad I think I replied to wrong post. 🙂
FM analog audio is practically the best quality you can get. Your statement is baffling. Something must be wrong with your radio or audio equipment. My NAD tuner sounds as incredible as my NAD CD player when tuned to the right station.
I don’t think it’s fair to say the market has decided. Most people don’t know there is an FM chip in their phone. Unless people know the chip is there and it could be activated, and they have a choice as to whether or not to activate it, the market has not decided, it has been kept in ignorance.
Very True !….
Exactly, thank you! MDN can be sooooo ignorant. If it were available and folks still chose apps THEN it would be decided
I had no idea, but I would love to have the option available on my iPhone, mainly for talk shows and local news.
Quite right- the market hasn’t decided on something it didn’t know about. Although, in my own case, I did purchase a model of iPod specifically because it had the FM active, and I still use it as an FM radio from time to time. (Because the FM radio market here in the Boston area is _awesome!_.)
They dont want to activate it, because then they can’t overcharge you for all the streaming you do on their overpriced cel networks… FM receives are free.
Fm receivers in smartphones was mandated. No one wanted to put them in.
do you have a link handy to where the government imposed that?
https://www.ecnmag.com/article/2010/08/new-government-mandate-fm-chips-all-mobile-phones
thanks. 🙂
It says this mandate was never enacted, if I have read this correctly…
Introduced:
Feb 4, 2009
111th Congress, 2009–2010
Status:
Died in a previous Congress
This bill was introduced on May 13, 2009, in a previous session of Congress, but was not enacted.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/s379
Great regulation. They can require that they are built in but can’t mandate that they actually work.
The quality of the reception will be terrible! And people, thinking it should be as good as streamed, will be complaining. No, leave it off – your ears deserve better!
The quality of the reception will be just fine, as evidenced by the iPod I have that does have the FM chip active- but, and it’s a big BUT, you need to be using the wired earphones, which are necessary as an antenna for the FM signal. I have to say it’s a very rare day when I use earphones with my phone at all, and when I do, it’s a bluetooth set while driving. So…..
MDN…
Did the market decide to let Botty’s mom reproduce?
Should the market decide about the Emergency Broadcast System?
Should the market decide everything?
The market has no right to decide everything. The airwaves are owned by each countries airspace and managed on behalf of their people by their governments in accordance with their laws. Not the market’s laws.
Let me decide if FM radio is good enough for my old ears. If my iPhone is capable of receiving FM or even AM radio, dagnabbedit, I want it.
I disagree with MDN, let the free consumer, not the free market, decide. Apple doesn’t need to make the app, just allow third party users to make an app.
I have not listened to radio since the introduction of the iPod.
What I remember was commercials every ten minutes, annoying DJs and songs I did not want to hear.
I have Android devices with working radio chips, never use it.
I agree with requiring FM reception to be activated if for no other reason than having reliable access to the Emergency Alert System. In times of severe weather, earthquakes, etc., digital networks may fail or become overloaded. Broadcast radio, which is point-to-multipoint, is an efficient way to disseminate reliable information in an emergency. Studios and transmitters are equipped with emergency generators and fuel supplies. Users might well be glad to find that they have these additional channels available when it hits the fan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System
If the earth starts shaking I do not need a Radio Station I do not listen to telling me the earth is shaking- the same is true if it rains.
On 9-11 most of the broadcasters in New York were off the air as their primary transmitters were in the World Trade Center and most had given up their backup equipment after a deregulation no longer required it. If memory serves WCBS AM/TV was the only large network owned station with a backup on the Empire State Building. Since much of Manhattan in 2001 had no cable and few had satellite- they were without most radio and TV.
Likewise, many of the cell towers serving lower Manhattan and adjacent areas were atop the WTC. This made cell service almost impossible for some time.
New York somehow survived. The EAS is a relic of the Cold War’s EBS. https://youtu.be/wdpLWML_tDU
Hey, I remember ConelRad….
This commissioner brought to you in part by the National Association of Broadcasters…
No thank you.
Most users will not use it as mobile phones do not have good antennas for AM or FM reception and most listeners do not give a shit about local media.
Online I can listen to just about any station of any format from anywhere I damn please. Locally I have to choose mainly from the stations owned en masse by whatever Clear Channel (I Heart Media, whatever) is calling itself today or Entercomm. None are programmed locally and most serve up the same canned shit in Denver as in Dallas as in Duluth.
I am old enough to remember when local radio was locally programmed, locally owned and locally produced. A Rock, Soul or Country Station in Memphis sounded different from one in Atlanta or Phoenix or Los Angeles as the local PD programmed the station and it to some extent reflected local tastes- request lines, local record sales, local concert ticket sales. These days they all are programmed by the same faceless whomever in wherever that decided we should all listen to the same shit. This has great hurt the diversity within each major style of popular music as local tastes provided the room and financial support to get new artists up and going. All styles of music are less than they could be because if this.
Many of the most successful online broadcasters do what they are doing because they love the music and the ability to stream has leveled the playing field. No longer are we bound to whatever the local broadcast monopoly wants us to hear. Some of us do not give a fuck about Rush, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Sports Talk, Garth Brooks or Beyonce.
The little weasel no chairing the FCC is a tool to the highest bidder just like Michale Powell back in they day.
Oh, a music related story. About a week ago I heard this interesting song on a Netflix series. Siri recoginized the song, and Apple Music began playing it. Inspired, I created a new playlist utilizing the “You might also like” suggestions, which contains similar albums and songs based on the song currently playing. The entire playlist was made using this method.
“Valentine”
https://itunes.apple.com/us/playlist/valentine/idpl.5151a00d0519489ba319a294ebf324c0
I’d love to receive FM on my iPhone!
Why would you want to listen to FM radio…it’s nothing but rightwing hate screamers, jeebus screamers and clearchannel just blasting the top 3 pop/rap/country songs all day long interspersed with ads for tire shops. I got an iPod in the first goddamn place so I wouldn’t have to listen to that dreck.
NPR, PRI, BBC, and REALLY local stations that do NOT subscribe to ClearChannel, such as KPIG in santa cruz ca area ((http://www.kpig.com/)). Yes most are online, but here in the mountains there are so many dead spots for cellular streaming it would be VERY nice to have. So please take my answer as a heartfelt desire to educate you about what is available (and desireable to some of us) if truly you believe “it’s nothing but rightwing hate screamers, jeebus screamers and clearchannel”, maybe that is true in your neck of the woods, but don’t lump me into one of those who live in your neck of the woods