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Information technology'south not common noesis in the United States, just the majority of Android devices in-market technically sport FM radio tuners congenital into their SoCs. It used to be next to incommunicable to find a smartphone from whatsoever vendor in the Us that offered an unlocked radio, but that's improved somewhat in contempo years. Nosotros've seen some sound services pop upwardly that support this capability, and a handful of smartphones and carriers that now support it on diverse Android devices. Apple tree, all the same, has refused to actuate whatsoever such feature. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and Irma, however, the FCC is calling for Apple to begin activating its phone's native capability and making it bachelor to people for emergency communication, if goose egg else.

Hurricane Irma NASA

This isn't the showtime fourth dimension this issue has come, just the various telcos, similar Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile have always been lukewarm on the thought. As the cell phone industry has transitioned away from pay-per-minute and towards pay-per-GB of information, they accept absolutely no reason to create whatsoever capability that gives customers an alternative to data streaming. From AT&T's perspective, the all-time thing that could maybe happen would be for YouTube, Twitch, and other streaming sites to go back to MPEG-2 for streaming 1080p content. (But as H.265 cut video file sizes at a given quality level by twoscore-60 per centum compared with H.264, H.264 cutting video file sizes or streaming bandwidth requirements by roughly that corporeality compared with MPEG-2.) Every client who listens to an FM radio for music is a client that isn't using information to go the same information over their cellular plan.

"It is time for Apple to step up to the plate and put the rubber of the American people first," Pai said on Th. "As the Sun Picket of South Florida put it, 'Do the right affair, Mr. Cook. Flip the switch. Lives depend on it.'"

Hurricane-Irma-1

Cell towers on Barbuda won't exist transmitting anytime shortly; hurricanes can level telecommunications infrastructure. FM towers broadcasting from areas less affected can be vital communication points.

Pai has a bespeak, for several reasons. Beginning, while cellular companies tin all the same push emergency updates out via text, this presupposes jail cell towers are still functional. Obviously a storm can take out a radio tower, too–in fact, there were photos of Irma'due south damage on Barbuda that showed its telecommunication towers snapped off near the base. But while a hurricane tin can have out a radio belfry, FM radio broadcasts tin can be picked upwards dozens of miles away from a radio station, and AM radios can heard even farther than that.

Growing up in Southwest Indiana, I remember my Dad sometimes listening to WGN-AM at night to take hold of Cubs games, more 300 miles abroad. FM radio doesn't have that kind of range, but it has far more range than cellular radio–and that means there'due south a much greater chance that FM broadcasts can still be relayed to tempest-damaged areas, even those without power or cellular connectivity. FM radio too consumes a fraction of the ability to mind to than cellular radios, which ways cell phones that are listening to it will terminal longer on the aforementioned amount of charge.

These kind of capabilities are legitimately useful in emergency situations. Even subsequently a storm or other disaster is over, it can accept days, weeks, or months to repair the grid and bring generators back online. In severe cases, like Puerto Rico'southward, restoring the ability grid could take years, later Maria more than-or-less destroyed it at every level. Even later Harvey had weakened and was no longer a directly threat to life and limb, it continued to dump water into Houston. Officials had to open up the spillways of several reservoirs to avoid a potentially catastrophic collapse, at a time when over a hundred thousand people were without power. It's true that disasters like Harvey and Irma are rare events, but that doesn't hateful effective communication channels aren't critically needed in such emergencies.

Apple has rebuffed Pai'southward phone call, reports Ars Technica:

Apple cares deeply about the safety of our users, especially during times of crisis and that's why we have engineered modern safety solutions into our products. Users can punch emergency services and access Medical ID carte du jour information directly from the Lock Screen, and we enable government emergency notifications, ranging from Weather Advisories to AMBER alerts. iPhone 7 and iPhone viii models practice not have FM radio chips in them nor do they accept antennas designed to support FM signals, so it is not possible to enable FM reception in these products.