10 ms·

FCC chief wants smartphones’ hidden FM radios turned on

148 points by saycheese 10y ago

saycheese 10y ago
FCC will not step in to require FM chips be accessible on smartphones that have them; currently only 44% of the top selling smartphones enable their FM chips, here's a list of the ones that do: http://nextradioapp.com/supported-devices/ http://nextradioapp.com/supported-devices/
- 5555624 10y ago
  No, that's a list of phones that support the nextradio app. I did not buy my Sony Z3 and Z3 Compact from my carrier (T-Mobile). They work fine -- T-Mobile once offered a branded Z3 -- as does the FM radio. Neither phone will support the nextradio app. Although I can install the app, it says I need to contact my carrier. nextradio support says the same thing. I don't know if nextradio supports unbranded phones on their list; but, they do not support all phones with working FM radio.
avemg 10y ago
Submitted title gives the impression that he's going to do something about it. Actual article title: "FCC chief wants smartphones’ hidden FM radios turned on, but won’t do anything about it"
- seltzered_ 10y ago
  This. From the article: "“As a believer in free markets and the rule of law, I cannot support a government mandate requiring activation of these chips,” Pai said. He believes the FCC doesn’t have the power to issue such a mandate and says it’s best for the market to sort things out."
  - sverige 10y ago
    Sometimes when the rights of sellers and the rights of buyers clash, it becomes obvious that the rights of buyers should be protected by the government through regulation since the market isn't fully free due to monopolistic or oligopolistic market forces. Even Mr. Pai can see that this is stupid, but is unwilling to require manufacturers to do the right thing. This is one of those cases where libertarianism loses its appeal.
    - macspoofing 10y ago
      No. In this case he's spot on. There's really no need for the government to interject in this specific matter.
    - wyager 10y ago
      Libertarianism loses its appeal because cell phone manufacturers don't want to waste money and engineering time supporting FM radio, which almost no one listens to anyway? There's plenty of competition among cell companies, and the market has spoken; people don't really care about FM radio on their cell phones.
      - Fej 10y ago
        It is a matter of safety. Given a national crisis, the cellular networks may go down, but the radio will practically always work.
        oceanswave 10y ago
        If something takes out the 215,000 cell towers in the us, I wonder if that something will affect the 27,000 FM Radio towers as well - some of which are co located on the same masts. Granted, it's easier to broadcast FM and be received
        ouid 10y ago
        Cell networks can go down for non-structural reasons. Radio has no network load.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - frugalmail 10y ago
    >"...He believes the FCC doesn’t have the power to issue such a mandate and says it’s best for the market to sort things out." Good thing we're paying him to perform such an important job. ...Wait, what is supposed to be doing?
- pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
  the FM radio on my phone uses the headphone cable as the FM antenna... without it, the signal is junk. new phones don't have headphone jack... so what good is a radio turned on with no way to hook up an antenna? you're all idiots.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > FCC chief wants smartphones’ hidden FM radios turned on, but won’t do anything about it That's a principled stand: 'I want to do something, but I do not have legitimate authority to make sit so.' It's actually amazingly principled for someone in Washington.
  - MBCook 10y ago
    Right. He's simply expressing his own opinion without trying to force the law around it. This isn't really any different from a police sergeant disagreeing publicly with something but saying he still going to enforce the existing laws around it or he doesn't think would be legal to make a law to cover it. For example, flag burning. Lots of people think it should be illegal, lots of people know that that would be unconstitutional.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    Political communication is not about transferring information or truth, but about manipulation. You and I aren't consumers of it or citizens, we're targets. Another way to think about it is the old poker advice: "If you look around and don't know who the sucker is, it's you." Many like him (I don't know him in particular) want to appear to appeal to our principles in order to manipulate us into support or at least quiescence, so they use the words that accomplish that. Meanwhile they are enacting policies (and ideologies) they desire, including enriching big business and other wealthy constituents of his party. It's like watching a magician - don't watch where they're directing your attention, look at the other hand. Or, 'follow the money' - who benefits? These messages are carefully crafted - literally; experts are hired to compose them, messaging is tested like marketing, and people are trained in what to say (talking points). For example, you may recall that in the debate about cutting estate taxes the GOP started calling them "death taxes" and taking about the cost to small farmers and businesses; all that messaging was composed, using the process I described, by a guy they hired in the 1990s - and sure enough, 10 years later people I know were repeating it like it was gospel.
    - bnolsen 10y ago
      but death taxes suck. government coming in during time of grief and taking people's money that likely was already taxed one or more times. cold, heartless, calculating, disrespectful. everything we hate about government.
svantana 10y ago
I may be wrong here, but wouldn't reception be pretty poor using an antenna designed for >10x the frequency of FM radio? There's a reason why most FM radios have protruding antennas - the wavelength is ~3 meters.
- darkengine 10y ago
  My first Android smartphone had an FM radio, and it used the headphone cable as an antenna. You had to have headphones plugged in or you got nothing but static.
- detaro 10y ago
  Normally they use the headphone cable as an antenna (which leads to contortions if you want to listen using bluetooth, since with most phones the software assumes "oh, headphones plugged in, audio to headphones it is")
  - nxc18 10y ago
    Windows Phone did a good job with this; the music app let you choose to override the default and play through the output device of your choice.
- wbl 10y ago
  The reception is crap, but the S/N ratio is still good because the electronics add minimal noise, so most of the noise is atmospheric interference which is also reduced.
acomjean 10y ago
As someone who was using an old walkman to listen to radio. Now I stream it, even though I'm within range of the fm station. Mainly its convince as the rechargeable aa batteries for my am/fm cassette found another home. It seems so wasteful though, on the other hand I feel like I'm being counted when I stream.
- r00fus 10y ago
  counted, or tracked and monitored? I never listen to FM, but I'm sure a bunch of folks are busy collecting my habits and listening preferences are a valuable input to a complete "dossier".
hashkb 10y ago
Why? There's no good reason for carriers or phone makers to do it. I haven't been anywhere where the radio was playing in a long time. I'd rather see the frequencies returned to the general population for fun.
upofadown 10y ago
A lot of these sorts of problems would go away if companies were not allowed to tie products they have a complete or partial monopoly on (i.e. last mile wireless) to things that they don't have a monopoly on (handsets). Then if a company wanted to sell a phone on a time payment plan with a broken FM radio, then then no one could complain if they did so. The market would soon "sort things out".
- scarface74 10y ago
  Cellular carriers haven't had a stranglehold on phone manufacturers since the iPhone came out. I don't think carriers are demanding features from Apple. As far as Android, you can buy plenty of decent Android phones unlocked and just choose your carrier - as long as you don't choose one of the CDMA carriers. Not being able to use Sprint is no big loss. That just leaves Verizon.
  - timewarrior 10y ago
    Even with Verizon if you have a phone which supports their LTE bands, you can use them on Verizon. I used my iPhone 6 and iPhone SE from AT&T on Verizon.
    - scarface74 10y ago
      That's not true of all phones though. Most phones don't support CDMA and GSM. Both SE models support CDMA and GSM but different bands. But only some iPhone 6 models support CDMA. http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/iphone-faq/differences-between-iphone-6-models.html http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/iphone-faq/diff...
      - coredog64 10y ago
        I thought it was the other way around. VZW's CDMA phones support GSM so that their customers can use them while traveling internationally, but you're unlikely to find a GSM phone that has CDMA just in case you want to switch to VZW.
tmzt 10y ago
These chips are also only useful with wired headphones, since they use them as the FM antenna. As Bluetooth (and proprietary) wireless headphones increase in popularity, the usefulness of the features decrease. It also adds to confusion as to why you only get static in some cases, or a message about wired headphones being required.
- throwawayish 10y ago
  > wireless headphones increase in popularity Do they? > It also adds to confusion as to why you only get static in some cases, or a message about wired headphones being required. Poor humans, constantly being confused. Life must be difficult.
ansible 10y ago
As I've said before, every cubic millimeter of volume in a modern smartphone is expensive... it is precious. Even if that functionality is available on one of the multiprotocol wireless chips, adding even a tiny amount of support circuitry to enable may not be a wise move from a product design point of view. In the USA, an FM receiver isn't going to sell phones. VR, better cameras, longer battery life, etc. sell phones.
- givinguflac 10y ago
  Exactly, and it's not like forcing that function to be enabled in the chipset is going to magically install an antenna/amp into a device that doesn't have it.
  - chinathrow 10y ago
    What? The antenna has been the headphones for ages.
    - sverige 10y ago
      And last I checked, removing software that blocks the radio function would not add a cubic nanometer to the total volume of the chipset.
    - bonniemuffin 10y ago
      ...until wireless headphones started becoming common.
      - squarefoot 10y ago
        Then I'd expect the FM reception functionality to be built into the headphones, with the phone acting as a remote to switch stations etc. Not that I'm for eliminating the 3.5mm jack: this is just one among other reasons I'd refuse to get an iPhone even for free.
      - DerekL 10y ago
        Or using the phone's internal speakers.
eganist 10y ago
There's a title mismatch between submission and original post, with the original title providing far more context. cc dang
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ungzd 10y ago
In Russia, FM stations are as bad as TV. Mostly "Russian chanson" music — songs about jail life and "thieves romanticism", lowest grade pop music and propaganda news. Is there decent stations in US? But it would be super cool if such receivers had frequency range larger than for broadcast stations and streamed raw i/q samples.
- ppas 10y ago
  Usually the latest hits are on. Local universities usually also play whatever they want which ends up good.
- MK999 10y ago
  FM music is pretty much the same everywhere in the US because Clear Channel owns (almost) everything
  - sabujp 10y ago
    on the west coast there are tons of hispanic stations, the occasional bollywood station, classical, talk (both liberal and conservative), public radio, country, christian
- dunham 10y ago
  For road trips, we always just play mp3's off of our phone. (The car doesn't have aux in, so we actually use a FM transmitter dongle for the phone.) The stations in the US seem to have a _lot_ of advertisements, and as others have noted, are mostly owned by clear channel and play the same ten songs over and over. (Stations generally have a genre of music they play, so they'll repeat the same ten songs of that genre.) But I agree that software defined radio would be an interesting function to have on a phone.
- praneshp 10y ago
  I had a 1-hr each way car commute for about 6 months, and gave up on FM really quickly. Too much repetition, even on the Bollywood channel. I got Sirius XM, and loved it, except for the (somewhat) shady billing practices.
dade_ 10y ago
As a public policy, it should be encouraged as many people can't afford data plans. Basically their smartphone is their computer, and they go from hotspot to hotspot for data. I also agree with the public safety aspect as well, but either case requires consumer awareness and interest. My Sony Xperia tablet has an FM tuner, but I had no idea it was there until I noticed the app. It works well with a wired headset. It was handy in Cuba (though everything was in Spanish) and a few other places where Internet wasn't available/practical to use. I don't know that it would affect my next purchase, but it does affect my perception of how user-hostile the manufacturer is.
- valuearb 10y ago
  It should be "encouraged"? What does this mean? There are phones that support FM radio, if it's important to you get one. Don't foist the costs of this "feature" on those who don't want it. It's pretty clear Apple doesn't support radio because it's a feature almost no one wants, and won't necessarily work as well as customers want. You need an antenna, which on most phones uses the headphones, but it's unclear if lightning phones can provide the same support. Spending money and time trying to resolve any issues would just be a waste.
Pxtl 10y ago
To be fair, there are bodies in charge of competiton and consumer protection that should be fixing the moronic us cellphone market. The FCC is just about the broadcast frequencies themselves.
dchest 10y ago
Related: Norway is first country to turn off FM radio and go digital-only https://www.newscientist.com/article/2117569-norway-is-first-country-to-turn-off-fm-radio-and-go-digital-only/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2117569-norway-is-first...
- jedberg 10y ago
  If we did this in the US it would be terrible for me. I still listen to the radio when I drive because I don't have unlimited data on my phone for streaming. My car is 16 years old so the radio doesn't support digital and it definitely isn't worth upgrading. So I'd often be driving in silence which, while not the end of the world, would suck. My wife's car does have a digital radio, but on long trips around California there are often times when I can only get analog radio because they digital infrastructure just isn't there. Perhaps a forced change would make them upgrade, but I suspect there would be a lot more dead zones (because at least at the current power levels, the analog versions of the stations reach much further).
  - realo 10y ago
    Are you aware that most music apps like Spotify allow you to pre-load music? You can download thousands of tunes in an hour or so, from any wifi hotspot. No advertisements either. Then you play it back in your car. Weeks of music, if you want. FM radio is usually heavily handicapped by advertisements on-air. THAT is one major reason that is driving "Internet-enabled" people away. And they never come back.
    - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
      Honestly, I enjoy the radio personalities and their choice of music. I have playlists I can listen to on my phone, but I hear most new music through the radio. The ads aren't that bad, I flip channels sometimes because of ads, but that's not a big deal.
    - jedberg 10y ago
      I enjoy the curation of the music directors and the witty banter in the morning (despite the fact that a lot of it is from yesterday's Reddit). I can usually get six good stations in the Bay Area so commercials aren't a problem. I just go to the next station.
rchaud 10y ago
My LG Incite from 2008 running Windows Mobile 6.1 had an FM Radio, as did my HTC HD2 from around the same time. There were multiple Sandisk Sansa series MP3 players that came with FM built-in as well. I remember the iPod did not offer FM without a dongle, probably because they didn't want radio to compete with the iTunes Store. It's probably not that different now. Lots of Android phones today (carrier subsidized or otherwise), now come with Spotify, Tidal or Google Play Music pre-installed. It worries me that a regulatory body makes a public safety case for FM radio and won't even attempt to ask manufacturers to simply activate what is already there, in deference to "the free market". So now pushing for regulation is disrespecting "the rule of law"? Developments like this make me wish that "open-source" device+OS projects like Mokophone and Firefox OS failed to gain traction.
- X-Istence 10y ago
  The iPod Nano 5th edition required that the user plug in head phones to listen to FM radio, this was required because there was no internal antenna, nor would one work very well with the case being made out of metal. Not a dongle...
  - MBCook 10y ago
    I believe he's right Apple sold an actual radio tuner for earlier models before the 5th gen nano.
    - X-Istence 10y ago
      Ah, you are correct: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Radio-Remote-iPod-White/dp/B000MTEER4 https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Radio-Remote-iPod-White/dp/B000... Interesting, never knew about this.
- massysett 10y ago
  "So now pushing for regulation is disrespecting "the rule of law"?" Yes, where an agency takes action outside the scope of its lawful powers.
ceedan 10y ago
My Nokia Lumia 920 had an fm radio.... I loved that feature of it. I used to listen to local radio/sports radio stations on the way home from work without using my data (public transit, no wifi).
- bsilvereagle 10y ago
  All Windows Phones were required to have a functioning FM tuner. Microsoft had a strict list of hardware requirements.
Dowwie 10y ago
This is the FCC chief who uses the free market competition argument in favor of reversing net neutrality.
SEJeff 10y ago
Virtually all major FM radio stations can be found on tunein.com, which is how Sonos speakers support local radio stations.
i336_ 10y ago
I think I've figured out what's really going on here. I had a look at http://nextradioapp.com http://nextradioapp.com and found that even the Galaxy S7 Edge has an FM radio. Curious if there was some kind of secret way to kickstart it regardless of the vendors' interests, I did a quick Google and found https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/908251 https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/908251, and learned something very very interesting. (I still don't know if you can bypass it, but I'd now be surprised if you could.) Most of the below is taken from the above link, which is recommended reading. It appears that to enable the FM radio, you must pay licensing fees (?) of some kind, and you must also do FCC radiation testing. If you disable the FM receiver chip (presumably in a way end-users cannot bypass :( ), you get to skip those fees. It also seems that if the manufacturer turns the radio off, it's still possible for the carrier to turn it back on if they foot the bills for the licensing fees and certification. So the carriers' position isn't too great: they're getting handsets with neutered FM receivers from manufacturers looking to "optimize" their OEM prices, which the carriers would have to throw a bunch of money at re-enabling... only to give consumers less reason to continuously use data. This totally explains why I only just learned the S7 Edge has an FM receiver in it (I'm in Australia btw). Regarding the OP article, this whole situation appears to just be a money-grabbing attempt by the FCC. The gracious-sounding lines in the OP article about him saying that he doesn't believe he should force everyone is just fluff. This is just a careful financial drive - the FCC can't force everyone to enable the radio because it would risk the FCC itself getting stomped on itself by antitrust laws/conflict of interest rulings. That being said, nextradio does list a few phones with enabled radios on a number of carriers, so I'm guessing the fees are not too high, and I'm guessing this is simply a benign case of, say, fewer radios being sold worldwide because everyone's moved to their phone now, and the FCC is trying to continue receiving their FM revenue while the FM bandwidth is still operative - for example Norway just killed FM countrywide (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13333570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13333570). I'm very very curious who is footing the bill for the 80% of phones being sold in Mexico (as per the OP article).
- makomk 10y ago
  The FCC-mandated radiation testing for FM receivers is absolutely trivial compared to all the other emissions tests required by them for electronics devices, especially intentional radiators such as mobile phones. They're at the lowest tier of assessment and authorization, which doesn't even require the use of an accredited testing laboratory or filing any kind of application or registration: http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=df5370d2e0e33e10c9b55ce593b56af3&mc=true&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title47/47tab_02.tpl http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=df5370d2e0e33e10c9b... Any company capable of making a mobile phone should have the equipment to do this in-house. Now, it's entirely possible that the chipset manufacturers are charging licensing fees to enable FM radio, but as far as I can tell companies don't have to pay a single cent to the FCC for this.
Clubber 10y ago
I'd love if my iPhone had an FM/AM radio. I think it's silly that they don't put one in there yet, and I don't know of a good reason. The nano's have them. I'd be fine with the headphones being an antenna. Data caps, man. I need my tunes at work!
sengork 10y ago
I would love to see manufacturers enable this feature instead of artificially crippling the software/hardware found in the phones. Tuning into local tourist information broadcast is something that you cannot completely substitute with a data connection.
mailslot 10y ago
I know people that have never even used an AM/FM radio. Like, if you say a radio station, they don't know what the numbers mean. I don't see a lot of people using this feature because they don't know what it is.
- jgalt212 10y ago
  presumably those people have never driven a car.
mkj 10y ago
Can phones access the radio audio in software? Combine it with a low power FM transmitter for data and you might be able to make something interesting for short distance data broadcasts.
drivingmenuts 10y ago
Yep, because we all need more unskippable ads, the same 10 songs on infinite repeat and shock-jocks screaming about whatever. If radio actually had some variation from that pattern, I'd support this. Instead, I'd suggest just dropping the radio tuner chip and using the space for something else that's actually useful. The only reason they're in there in the first place is because the radio industry pitched a hissyfit and Congress decided some protectionism was in order.

148 points by saycheese 10y ago

FCC will not step in to require FM chips be accessible on smartphones that have them; currently only 44% of the top selling smartphones enable their FM chips, here's a list of the ones that do: http://nextradioapp.com/supported-devices/ http://nextradioapp.com/supported-devices/

5555624 10y ago
No, that's a list of phones that support the nextradio app. I did not buy my Sony Z3 and Z3 Compact from my carrier (T-Mobile). They work fine -- T-Mobile once offered a branded Z3 -- as does the FM radio. Neither phone will support the nextradio app. Although I can install the app, it says I need to contact my carrier. nextradio support says the same thing. I don't know if nextradio supports unbranded phones on their list; but, they do not support all phones with working FM radio.

avemg 10y ago

Submitted title gives the impression that he's going to do something about it. Actual article title: "FCC chief wants smartphones’ hidden FM radios turned on, but won’t do anything about it"

seltzered_ 10y ago
This. From the article: "“As a believer in free markets and the rule of law, I cannot support a government mandate requiring activation of these chips,” Pai said. He believes the FCC doesn’t have the power to issue such a mandate and says it’s best for the market to sort things out."
- sverige 10y ago
  Sometimes when the rights of sellers and the rights of buyers clash, it becomes obvious that the rights of buyers should be protected by the government through regulation since the market isn't fully free due to monopolistic or oligopolistic market forces. Even Mr. Pai can see that this is stupid, but is unwilling to require manufacturers to do the right thing. This is one of those cases where libertarianism loses its appeal.
  - macspoofing 10y ago
    No. In this case he's spot on. There's really no need for the government to interject in this specific matter.
  - wyager 10y ago
    Libertarianism loses its appeal because cell phone manufacturers don't want to waste money and engineering time supporting FM radio, which almost no one listens to anyway? There's plenty of competition among cell companies, and the market has spoken; people don't really care about FM radio on their cell phones.
    - Fej 10y ago
      It is a matter of safety. Given a national crisis, the cellular networks may go down, but the radio will practically always work.
      - oceanswave 10y ago
        If something takes out the 215,000 cell towers in the us, I wonder if that something will affect the 27,000 FM Radio towers as well - some of which are co located on the same masts. Granted, it's easier to broadcast FM and be received
        ouid 10y ago
        Cell networks can go down for non-structural reasons. Radio has no network load.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- frugalmail 10y ago
  >"...He believes the FCC doesn’t have the power to issue such a mandate and says it’s best for the market to sort things out." Good thing we're paying him to perform such an important job. ...Wait, what is supposed to be doing?
pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
the FM radio on my phone uses the headphone cable as the FM antenna... without it, the signal is junk. new phones don't have headphone jack... so what good is a radio turned on with no way to hook up an antenna? you're all idiots.
wtbob 10y ago
> FCC chief wants smartphones’ hidden FM radios turned on, but won’t do anything about it That's a principled stand: 'I want to do something, but I do not have legitimate authority to make sit so.' It's actually amazingly principled for someone in Washington.
- MBCook 10y ago
  Right. He's simply expressing his own opinion without trying to force the law around it. This isn't really any different from a police sergeant disagreeing publicly with something but saying he still going to enforce the existing laws around it or he doesn't think would be legal to make a law to cover it. For example, flag burning. Lots of people think it should be illegal, lots of people know that that would be unconstitutional.
- hackuser 10y ago
  Political communication is not about transferring information or truth, but about manipulation. You and I aren't consumers of it or citizens, we're targets. Another way to think about it is the old poker advice: "If you look around and don't know who the sucker is, it's you." Many like him (I don't know him in particular) want to appear to appeal to our principles in order to manipulate us into support or at least quiescence, so they use the words that accomplish that. Meanwhile they are enacting policies (and ideologies) they desire, including enriching big business and other wealthy constituents of his party. It's like watching a magician - don't watch where they're directing your attention, look at the other hand. Or, 'follow the money' - who benefits? These messages are carefully crafted - literally; experts are hired to compose them, messaging is tested like marketing, and people are trained in what to say (talking points). For example, you may recall that in the debate about cutting estate taxes the GOP started calling them "death taxes" and taking about the cost to small farmers and businesses; all that messaging was composed, using the process I described, by a guy they hired in the 1990s - and sure enough, 10 years later people I know were repeating it like it was gospel.
  - bnolsen 10y ago
    but death taxes suck. government coming in during time of grief and taking people's money that likely was already taxed one or more times. cold, heartless, calculating, disrespectful. everything we hate about government.

svantana 10y ago

I may be wrong here, but wouldn't reception be pretty poor using an antenna designed for >10x the frequency of FM radio? There's a reason why most FM radios have protruding antennas - the wavelength is ~3 meters.

darkengine 10y ago
My first Android smartphone had an FM radio, and it used the headphone cable as an antenna. You had to have headphones plugged in or you got nothing but static.
detaro 10y ago
Normally they use the headphone cable as an antenna (which leads to contortions if you want to listen using bluetooth, since with most phones the software assumes "oh, headphones plugged in, audio to headphones it is")
- nxc18 10y ago
  Windows Phone did a good job with this; the music app let you choose to override the default and play through the output device of your choice.
wbl 10y ago
The reception is crap, but the S/N ratio is still good because the electronics add minimal noise, so most of the noise is atmospheric interference which is also reduced.

acomjean 10y ago

As someone who was using an old walkman to listen to radio. Now I stream it, even though I'm within range of the fm station. Mainly its convince as the rechargeable aa batteries for my am/fm cassette found another home. It seems so wasteful though, on the other hand I feel like I'm being counted when I stream.

r00fus 10y ago
counted, or tracked and monitored? I never listen to FM, but I'm sure a bunch of folks are busy collecting my habits and listening preferences are a valuable input to a complete "dossier".

hashkb 10y ago

Why? There's no good reason for carriers or phone makers to do it. I haven't been anywhere where the radio was playing in a long time. I'd rather see the frequencies returned to the general population for fun.

upofadown 10y ago

A lot of these sorts of problems would go away if companies were not allowed to tie products they have a complete or partial monopoly on (i.e. last mile wireless) to things that they don't have a monopoly on (handsets). Then if a company wanted to sell a phone on a time payment plan with a broken FM radio, then then no one could complain if they did so. The market would soon "sort things out".

scarface74 10y ago
Cellular carriers haven't had a stranglehold on phone manufacturers since the iPhone came out. I don't think carriers are demanding features from Apple. As far as Android, you can buy plenty of decent Android phones unlocked and just choose your carrier - as long as you don't choose one of the CDMA carriers. Not being able to use Sprint is no big loss. That just leaves Verizon.
- timewarrior 10y ago
  Even with Verizon if you have a phone which supports their LTE bands, you can use them on Verizon. I used my iPhone 6 and iPhone SE from AT&T on Verizon.
  - scarface74 10y ago
    That's not true of all phones though. Most phones don't support CDMA and GSM. Both SE models support CDMA and GSM but different bands. But only some iPhone 6 models support CDMA. http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/iphone-faq/differences-between-iphone-6-models.html http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/iphone-faq/diff...
    - coredog64 10y ago
      I thought it was the other way around. VZW's CDMA phones support GSM so that their customers can use them while traveling internationally, but you're unlikely to find a GSM phone that has CDMA just in case you want to switch to VZW.

tmzt 10y ago

These chips are also only useful with wired headphones, since they use them as the FM antenna. As Bluetooth (and proprietary) wireless headphones increase in popularity, the usefulness of the features decrease. It also adds to confusion as to why you only get static in some cases, or a message about wired headphones being required.

throwawayish 10y ago
> wireless headphones increase in popularity Do they? > It also adds to confusion as to why you only get static in some cases, or a message about wired headphones being required. Poor humans, constantly being confused. Life must be difficult.

ansible 10y ago

As I've said before, every cubic millimeter of volume in a modern smartphone is expensive... it is precious. Even if that functionality is available on one of the multiprotocol wireless chips, adding even a tiny amount of support circuitry to enable may not be a wise move from a product design point of view. In the USA, an FM receiver isn't going to sell phones. VR, better cameras, longer battery life, etc. sell phones.

givinguflac 10y ago
Exactly, and it's not like forcing that function to be enabled in the chipset is going to magically install an antenna/amp into a device that doesn't have it.
- chinathrow 10y ago
  What? The antenna has been the headphones for ages.
  - sverige 10y ago
    And last I checked, removing software that blocks the radio function would not add a cubic nanometer to the total volume of the chipset.
  - bonniemuffin 10y ago
    ...until wireless headphones started becoming common.
    - squarefoot 10y ago
      Then I'd expect the FM reception functionality to be built into the headphones, with the phone acting as a remote to switch stations etc. Not that I'm for eliminating the 3.5mm jack: this is just one among other reasons I'd refuse to get an iPhone even for free.
    - DerekL 10y ago
      Or using the phone's internal speakers.

eganist 10y ago

There's a title mismatch between submission and original post, with the original title providing far more context. cc dang

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ungzd 10y ago

In Russia, FM stations are as bad as TV. Mostly "Russian chanson" music — songs about jail life and "thieves romanticism", lowest grade pop music and propaganda news. Is there decent stations in US? But it would be super cool if such receivers had frequency range larger than for broadcast stations and streamed raw i/q samples.

ppas 10y ago
Usually the latest hits are on. Local universities usually also play whatever they want which ends up good.
MK999 10y ago
FM music is pretty much the same everywhere in the US because Clear Channel owns (almost) everything
- sabujp 10y ago
  on the west coast there are tons of hispanic stations, the occasional bollywood station, classical, talk (both liberal and conservative), public radio, country, christian
dunham 10y ago
For road trips, we always just play mp3's off of our phone. (The car doesn't have aux in, so we actually use a FM transmitter dongle for the phone.) The stations in the US seem to have a _lot_ of advertisements, and as others have noted, are mostly owned by clear channel and play the same ten songs over and over. (Stations generally have a genre of music they play, so they'll repeat the same ten songs of that genre.) But I agree that software defined radio would be an interesting function to have on a phone.
praneshp 10y ago
I had a 1-hr each way car commute for about 6 months, and gave up on FM really quickly. Too much repetition, even on the Bollywood channel. I got Sirius XM, and loved it, except for the (somewhat) shady billing practices.

dade_ 10y ago

As a public policy, it should be encouraged as many people can't afford data plans. Basically their smartphone is their computer, and they go from hotspot to hotspot for data. I also agree with the public safety aspect as well, but either case requires consumer awareness and interest. My Sony Xperia tablet has an FM tuner, but I had no idea it was there until I noticed the app. It works well with a wired headset. It was handy in Cuba (though everything was in Spanish) and a few other places where Internet wasn't available/practical to use. I don't know that it would affect my next purchase, but it does affect my perception of how user-hostile the manufacturer is.

valuearb 10y ago
It should be "encouraged"? What does this mean? There are phones that support FM radio, if it's important to you get one. Don't foist the costs of this "feature" on those who don't want it. It's pretty clear Apple doesn't support radio because it's a feature almost no one wants, and won't necessarily work as well as customers want. You need an antenna, which on most phones uses the headphones, but it's unclear if lightning phones can provide the same support. Spending money and time trying to resolve any issues would just be a waste.

Pxtl 10y ago

To be fair, there are bodies in charge of competiton and consumer protection that should be fixing the moronic us cellphone market. The FCC is just about the broadcast frequencies themselves.

dchest 10y ago

Related: Norway is first country to turn off FM radio and go digital-only https://www.newscientist.com/article/2117569-norway-is-first-country-to-turn-off-fm-radio-and-go-digital-only/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2117569-norway-is-first...

jedberg 10y ago
If we did this in the US it would be terrible for me. I still listen to the radio when I drive because I don't have unlimited data on my phone for streaming. My car is 16 years old so the radio doesn't support digital and it definitely isn't worth upgrading. So I'd often be driving in silence which, while not the end of the world, would suck. My wife's car does have a digital radio, but on long trips around California there are often times when I can only get analog radio because they digital infrastructure just isn't there. Perhaps a forced change would make them upgrade, but I suspect there would be a lot more dead zones (because at least at the current power levels, the analog versions of the stations reach much further).
- realo 10y ago
  Are you aware that most music apps like Spotify allow you to pre-load music? You can download thousands of tunes in an hour or so, from any wifi hotspot. No advertisements either. Then you play it back in your car. Weeks of music, if you want. FM radio is usually heavily handicapped by advertisements on-air. THAT is one major reason that is driving "Internet-enabled" people away. And they never come back.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Honestly, I enjoy the radio personalities and their choice of music. I have playlists I can listen to on my phone, but I hear most new music through the radio. The ads aren't that bad, I flip channels sometimes because of ads, but that's not a big deal.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    I enjoy the curation of the music directors and the witty banter in the morning (despite the fact that a lot of it is from yesterday's Reddit). I can usually get six good stations in the Bay Area so commercials aren't a problem. I just go to the next station.

rchaud 10y ago

My LG Incite from 2008 running Windows Mobile 6.1 had an FM Radio, as did my HTC HD2 from around the same time. There were multiple Sandisk Sansa series MP3 players that came with FM built-in as well. I remember the iPod did not offer FM without a dongle, probably because they didn't want radio to compete with the iTunes Store. It's probably not that different now. Lots of Android phones today (carrier subsidized or otherwise), now come with Spotify, Tidal or Google Play Music pre-installed. It worries me that a regulatory body makes a public safety case for FM radio and won't even attempt to ask manufacturers to simply activate what is already there, in deference to "the free market". So now pushing for regulation is disrespecting "the rule of law"? Developments like this make me wish that "open-source" device+OS projects like Mokophone and Firefox OS failed to gain traction.

X-Istence 10y ago
The iPod Nano 5th edition required that the user plug in head phones to listen to FM radio, this was required because there was no internal antenna, nor would one work very well with the case being made out of metal. Not a dongle...
- MBCook 10y ago
  I believe he's right Apple sold an actual radio tuner for earlier models before the 5th gen nano.
  - X-Istence 10y ago
    Ah, you are correct: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Radio-Remote-iPod-White/dp/B000MTEER4 https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Radio-Remote-iPod-White/dp/B000... Interesting, never knew about this.
massysett 10y ago
"So now pushing for regulation is disrespecting "the rule of law"?" Yes, where an agency takes action outside the scope of its lawful powers.

ceedan 10y ago

My Nokia Lumia 920 had an fm radio.... I loved that feature of it. I used to listen to local radio/sports radio stations on the way home from work without using my data (public transit, no wifi).

bsilvereagle 10y ago
All Windows Phones were required to have a functioning FM tuner. Microsoft had a strict list of hardware requirements.

Dowwie 10y ago

This is the FCC chief who uses the free market competition argument in favor of reversing net neutrality.

SEJeff 10y ago

Virtually all major FM radio stations can be found on tunein.com, which is how Sonos speakers support local radio stations.

i336_ 10y ago

I think I've figured out what's really going on here. I had a look at http://nextradioapp.com http://nextradioapp.com and found that even the Galaxy S7 Edge has an FM radio. Curious if there was some kind of secret way to kickstart it regardless of the vendors' interests, I did a quick Google and found https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/908251 https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/908251, and learned something very very interesting. (I still don't know if you can bypass it, but I'd now be surprised if you could.) Most of the below is taken from the above link, which is recommended reading. It appears that to enable the FM radio, you must pay licensing fees (?) of some kind, and you must also do FCC radiation testing. If you disable the FM receiver chip (presumably in a way end-users cannot bypass :( ), you get to skip those fees. It also seems that if the manufacturer turns the radio off, it's still possible for the carrier to turn it back on if they foot the bills for the licensing fees and certification. So the carriers' position isn't too great: they're getting handsets with neutered FM receivers from manufacturers looking to "optimize" their OEM prices, which the carriers would have to throw a bunch of money at re-enabling... only to give consumers less reason to continuously use data. This totally explains why I only just learned the S7 Edge has an FM receiver in it (I'm in Australia btw). Regarding the OP article, this whole situation appears to just be a money-grabbing attempt by the FCC. The gracious-sounding lines in the OP article about him saying that he doesn't believe he should force everyone is just fluff. This is just a careful financial drive - the FCC can't force everyone to enable the radio because it would risk the FCC itself getting stomped on itself by antitrust laws/conflict of interest rulings. That being said, nextradio does list a few phones with enabled radios on a number of carriers, so I'm guessing the fees are not too high, and I'm guessing this is simply a benign case of, say, fewer radios being sold worldwide because everyone's moved to their phone now, and the FCC is trying to continue receiving their FM revenue while the FM bandwidth is still operative - for example Norway just killed FM countrywide (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13333570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13333570). I'm very very curious who is footing the bill for the 80% of phones being sold in Mexico (as per the OP article).

makomk 10y ago
The FCC-mandated radiation testing for FM receivers is absolutely trivial compared to all the other emissions tests required by them for electronics devices, especially intentional radiators such as mobile phones. They're at the lowest tier of assessment and authorization, which doesn't even require the use of an accredited testing laboratory or filing any kind of application or registration: http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=df5370d2e0e33e10c9b55ce593b56af3&mc=true&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title47/47tab_02.tpl http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=df5370d2e0e33e10c9b... Any company capable of making a mobile phone should have the equipment to do this in-house. Now, it's entirely possible that the chipset manufacturers are charging licensing fees to enable FM radio, but as far as I can tell companies don't have to pay a single cent to the FCC for this.

Clubber 10y ago

I'd love if my iPhone had an FM/AM radio. I think it's silly that they don't put one in there yet, and I don't know of a good reason. The nano's have them. I'd be fine with the headphones being an antenna. Data caps, man. I need my tunes at work!

sengork 10y ago

I would love to see manufacturers enable this feature instead of artificially crippling the software/hardware found in the phones. Tuning into local tourist information broadcast is something that you cannot completely substitute with a data connection.

mailslot 10y ago

I know people that have never even used an AM/FM radio. Like, if you say a radio station, they don't know what the numbers mean. I don't see a lot of people using this feature because they don't know what it is.

jgalt212 10y ago
presumably those people have never driven a car.

mkj 10y ago

Can phones access the radio audio in software? Combine it with a low power FM transmitter for data and you might be able to make something interesting for short distance data broadcasts.

drivingmenuts 10y ago

Yep, because we all need more unskippable ads, the same 10 songs on infinite repeat and shock-jocks screaming about whatever. If radio actually had some variation from that pattern, I'd support this. Instead, I'd suggest just dropping the radio tuner chip and using the space for something else that's actually useful. The only reason they're in there in the first place is because the radio industry pitched a hissyfit and Congress decided some protectionism was in order.