Pai Urges Apple to Activate FM Chips in iPhones, Citing Public Safety Needs

Apple should “step up to the plate” and activate FM chips in iPhones to promote public safety, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday. Broadcasters have long sought activation. “Apple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted doing so,” Pai said, and he hopes "the company will reconsider its position, given the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.”

Groups supporting FM chip activation asked public officials in favor of the practice to go on the record in recent weeks. A pro-chip official said the request of Apple is response to the heavy use of radio and the FM chip-using NextRadio app during the storms. Pai noted during a news conference Tuesday he was “particularly struck” by the huge increase in usage of the app during Harvey. An FCC spokeswoman said Pai was motivated by the storms “to urge the last major holdout on this issue, Apple, to do the right thing.” Apple, Qualcomm, and CTA didn’t comment, nor did Emmis Communications, originator of the NextRadio FM smartphone app, which has been lobbying Apple for years to activate the FM chips (see 1701060004).

Observers had differing opinions about an FCC chair seeking action by a nonlicensee. “Who better than the top federal communications official to help remind companies -- even if not licensees -- of a higher call to corporate responsibility?" said consultant Adonis Hoffman, a former aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: "Using the Bully Pulpit to rally public safety measures by communications providers is a totally appropriate role for the FCC Chairman.”

“This is a unique situation,” said Womble Carlyle radio attorney John Garziglia. There has never been so many places ravaged by heavy storms where large numbers of people have devices that could be made able to receive FM radio with a software patch, he said. “One broadcaster can inform millions of people.” Having more chips activated in Apple’s ubiquitous phones would be a boon to radio broadcasters, Garziglia said. “I don’t think it’s that unusual," said Free State Foundation President Randolph May. "He can’t order Apple to do so, but he can appeal to Apple."

Singling out a company outside Pai’s “direct regulatory authority” is “unseemly,” said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, though Pai is “probably right” on the merits. Pai could better use his time and agency resources by doing something about the FCC not requiring multilingual emergency alert system messages, said Schwartzman, who litigated an appeal of an order on such alerts on behalf of the Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council. A decision on the matter is pending from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

NAB urges "Apple to acknowledge the public safety benefits" of broadcasting on smartphones "and to light up the FM chip.” “Consumers can choose today from hundreds of different phones and smartphones, and many of these devices include FM chips," a CTIA spokeswoman emailed. "The marketplace is working, and consumers are in the best position to choose the devices that meet their needs.”