Almost everything 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 chairman of the US FCC in January, would like to see more phones have these FM receivers turned on. 
"You could activate the chips for public security purposes only", said (PDF) at the North American Association's Future of Radio and Audio Symposium this week.
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 underlined that only 44% of smartphones have the FM chip enabled in the US and a much smaller percentage in Canada, compared to a Mexican 80%.
If Apple turns on the FM chip on iPhone, it would likely boost the FM activations dramatically as a whole. As MacRumors says, Pai's study found that 94 percent of phones that have not turned on Fm chips are iPhones.
Pai pointed out several benefits of activation. For example, using the FM chip the battery life would be extended as well mobile data θα ήταν λιγότερα. Το chip θα επέτρεπε επίσης τη λήψη ειδοποιήσεων έκτακτης ανάγκης, όταν το ασύρματο δίκτυο είναι υπερφορτωμένο.
Some carriers, like AT&T and Sprint, have decided recently to enable the FM chip in Android devices, and the move seems to have had an impact. Pai reported that the share of enabled FM chips had increased by 25 percent compared to chips enabled two years ago.
"As more and more Americans have FM chips enabled on their smartphones, consumer demand should continue to grow."
