Almost all smartphones sold in the US today, including the iPhone, have an FM chip inside their LTE modems. However, carriers and phone manufacturers keep the chip disabled, possibly for economic reasons.
Ajit Pai, who was appointed president of the US FCC in January, would like to see more phones to have these FM receivers enabled. 
"You could activate the chips for public security purposes only", said (PDF) στο North American Association’s Future of Radio and Audio Symposium αυτή την εβδteam.
Although they would like link providers and device manufacturers to turn on FM receivers, he said he would not force anyone to turn them on and let the market decide.
Pai pointed out that only 44% of smartphones have the FM chip enabled in the US and a very smaller percentage in Canada, compared to 80% in Mexico.
If the Apple ενεργοποιήσει το FM chip στο iPhone, θα ήταν πιθανό να ενισχύσει τις ενεργοποιήσεις του FM δραματικά στο σύνολό τους. Όπως αναφέρει το MacRumors, η μελέτη του Pai διαπίστωσε ότι το 94 τοις εκατό των τηλεφώνων που δεν έχουν ενεργοποιήσει τα FΜ chips είναι τα iPhones.
Ο Pai επεσήμανε πολλά οφέλη από την ενεργοποίηση. Για παράδειγμα, χρησιμοποιώντας το FΜ chip η διάρκεια ζωής της μπαταρίας θα μεγάλωνε και τα δεδομένα κινητής θα ήταν λιγότερα. Το chip θα επέτρεπε επίσης τη λήψη ειδοποιήσεων extraordinary emergency when the wireless network is overloaded.
Some providers, such as AT&T and Sprint, recently decided to enable the FM chip on Android devices, and this move seems to have had an impact. Pai reported that the share of activated FM chips had increased by 25 percent compared to the chips that were activated two years ago.
"As more and more Americans have FM chips enabled on their smartphones, consumer demand should continue to grow."
