Big Electro Companies Won't Let your Cell Device Play FM Radio

I don't know whether this is deliberate misinformation or just piss-poor ignorant "reporting", but in either case, it's wrong. There is no device, on any carrier that has FM radio capabilities "switched off". Many phones do have a fully if unction am FM radio, but it's not advertised due to lack of market interest (in the U.S. primarily), but if one were to plug in headphones and install a radio app that isn't limited to specific devices, it would work just fine.

In other cases, particularly with the newer devices, there are several variants made, to be sold in different regions. One variant of a particular device may have an FM radio while a different variant doesn't, but it has nothing to do with it being "switched off". If one were to look at such devices, they would see that the variants with the FM radio do not have an LTE radio (many parts of the world don't have LTE), whereas the ones without the FM do have an LTE radio. This is because most newer devices use system-on-chip processors, and there is a limited amount of physical space on the dies; they simply can't fit both. And when given a choice between LTE or FM, nobody is going to choose FM. Of course there are exceptions, and many phones that do have both, but it depends on the particular chipset being used.

If there were enough consumer demand in LTE regions, more devices would have both, but there isn't, which is why many of the devices that do have functional FM don't advertise it.

So no, there's no sinister group sitting in some shadowy office deciding to "switch off" everybody's precious FM radios....

a reply to: Bedlam

Exactly! To modulate information across a medium. Nothing magical your right..........what is your point.

originally posted by: bitsforbytes
a reply to: Bedlam

Exactly! To modulate information across a medium. Nothing magical your right..........what is your point.

"We could transmit data over FM"

Or AM. Or DPSK, or QAM, or SSB, or VSB, or DSBRC, or...

I could see a 3rd world country how FM would be useful, possible AM even more so. Internet 3G or whatever is fully functional in many places around the world, but AM/FM can reach further and is more reliable, esp for a government to communicate.

It makes me wonder if FM isn't featured on the cell phones because it would add a functionality to the device after it's normal lifecycle, discouraging people from recycling them.

a reply to: Pimpish i agree, best mobile ISP is T-Mobile. The radio apps are fun, where can I get a TV tuner app?

a reply to: Bedlam

Right, so because we have AM on a car radio I could upload a picture to my friend? Or............ using the FM chip on my phone maybe......

Granted I could use Bluetooth. It costs nothing to let the option be there. There are bunch of options on my phone I never use, like location service when I take a picture. But, I have an app to listen to the same radio station I can hear for free on a radio, however that app uses bandwidth instead of those pesky free FM waves.

Disabled why again? I think their are other motives other than it confuses people.

a reply to: Bedlam

Remeber when Smartphones came out and you could get them with no data plans, that was so right.

Now that they understand that wifi doesn't run the meter, they force you to take one or to buy the phone which is the same price as getting one of those plans. So yea, more examples of how other motives drive why certain things are there or not.

originally posted by: FlyingFox

It makes me wonder if FM isn't featured on the cell phones because it would add a functionality to the device after it's normal lifecycle, discouraging people from recycling them.

It's a cell phone. You probably won't have one if you're not in range of a cell. If you want a transistor radio it's cheaper to buy it

originally posted by: bitsforbytes
a reply to: Bedlam

Right, so because we have AM on a car radio I could upload a picture to my friend? Or............ using the FM chip on my phone maybe......

It's a broadcast FM receiver. It doesn't transmit.

Disabled why again? I think their are other motives other than it confuses people.

Not that one.

a reply to: Bedlam

My bad, on the broadcasting part......the rest still stands though.

Just download an app for it.

Android has one called Radio FM.

I wonder if you can make a SDR device out of the FM chip on a phone. Listen to trunking systems. Like Edacs 87 and Motorola.

Their bandwidth for chip would have to go up max 1ghrz range at least for that to be possible.

800mhrz range and 450mhrz range is typical of such system.

You can already turn a tv DVB stick receiver into one.