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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 ha

by 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.
- i336_ 10y ago
  Thanks for the info. Yeah, I didn't think testing for radio compliance would be too tricky. The license agreement bits do have me a bit perplexed. I'm not sure how that works out. I was admittedly rolling with conjecture and surmising a bit in my other comment, although it did sound plausible.

by i336_ 10y ago

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.

i336_ 10y ago
Thanks for the info. Yeah, I didn't think testing for radio compliance would be too tricky. The license agreement bits do have me a bit perplexed. I'm not sure how that works out. I was admittedly rolling with conjecture and surmising a bit in my other comment, although it did sound plausible.