Mandatory FM radio on Smart Phones.

[TheBigA]

So very true... Was reading where the Cell MFG's are dead set against the mandatory FM chips in phones and they will fight it all the way...

For the most part, their main problem is that it's mandatory. Which says to me they want to be a player at the negotiating table, not simply a toad being told what to do. Which means this will get far more complicated.

 

[V.Riley]

IMO, there isn't a great need for FM chips in cell phones. If a Radio station wants there station to be heard on a smart cell phone, then that station needs to be streaming in a format that a smart phone can pick up. I can pick up stations that do so using sites like YourMuse.FM which is great as I can pick the bit rate at which I'd like to hear the station.

 

[vsa]

If the cell phone industry didn't have its head up its butt, they'd do it without any prompting.

Prompting? How about seeking government enforced arm-twisting! Terrestrial radio is showing its desperation. Who's next on the list? Forcing radio receivers onto wallet and purse makers? Shoe makers? Pen and pencil makers? How about flashlights, water bottles, sunglasses, or watches? Perhaps we can force everyone to have an FM radio embedded in their bodies - all in an effort to preserve a would-be monopoly for a handful of short-sighted and greedy men who overpaid for almost obsolete broadcast properties.

 

[TheBigA]

Prompting? How about seeking government enforced arm-twisting!

In exchange for terrestrial radio paying $100 million in performance tax.

They are gambling that the cell phone industry will refuse, as it is. If that happens, they get a huge discount on the royalty.

I guess you don't play poker.

 

[JeeperOne]

Seems the same folks screaming they don't BIG government, now wants BIG government to step in and mandate.

Ohh....They DO want BIG government alright. They just don't want it looking out (And STICKING UP) for AVERAGE CONSUMERS LIKE US (But don't tell them that. They'll just deny it)

Besides, who would listen?

No one. Which is why the NAB & the networks on both Radio & TV aren't pushing for such an INSANELY RIDICULOUS mandate.

Besides, they don't need to anyway. Advertising works quite nicely. The RIAA should try educating themselves on this technique instead of FATTENING THE WALLETS OF THEIR F*CKIN LAWYERS by suing 13 year old children & 83 year old grandparents (And accomplishing little else than aggrevating judges nationwide only to wind up with CHUMP CHANGE in the process)

Just my opinion.....

Cheers

 

[Jay Peninger]

Well there is no way they are going to get congress or anyone else to mandate these FM chips in mobile devices....

First of all usage in devices that currently have these chips is almost not existent... I have owned a Zune with an FM tuner in it for several years and I am not sure other than to see how it worked when I first bought the zune have I ever used the FM radio feature and I use my zune on a daily basis...

Most important what legal president are they going to stand on to make it happen? Its hard to justify personal safety and emergency reasons when just about every home has a battery operated AM/FM radio and many have the crank variety which require no power for use...

Its a pipe dream and stall tactic by the NAB just like in boxing stick and move, stick and move, don't let the other guy get a shot in....

 

[TheBigA]

Its a pipe dream and stall tactic by the NAB just like in boxing stick and move, stick and move, don't let the other guy get a shot in....

Nothing wrong with that. Either broadcasters get stuck with a mandated royalty, or cell phones get a mandated FM chip. The fact is that Congress really doesn't want to mandate either. When it comes to their desk, the only Congressmen who'll support it are the few who want the royalty. The rest will do what the majority have done with the royalty, which is tell the involved parties to work it among among themselves.

 

[Ai4i]

We see room here for a solution that should please everyone.
Some interests say that broadcast radio inclusion would allow consumers to receive emergency, civil defense communications where web and phone access are down.
We sugest inclusion of the seven weather channels between 162.4 and 162.55 MHz.
They do cover the vast majority of both area and population except for much of Alaska, which is unserved by FM stations, anyway.

 

[TheBigA]

Great idea, but the recording industry doesn't care about weather news.

 

[Ai4i]

Great idea, but the recording industry doesn't care about weather news.

But is this not the excuse justification reason being given to the feds?

 

[TheBigA]

Great idea, but the recording industry doesn't care about weather news.

But is this not the excuse justification reason being given to the feds?

The mandatory FM inclusion is part of the NAB deal with the RIAA. Broadening the availability of FM is in the best interest of the owners of the spectrum, namely the American public, represented by Congress. Regardless of the excuse or justification. The airwaves belong to the public, and the public should be able to receive them everywhere at no cost.

 

[V.Riley]

Great idea, but the recording industry doesn't care about weather news.

But is this not the excuse justification reason being given to the feds?

The mandatory FM inclusion is part of the NAB deal with the RIAA. Broadening the availability of FM is in the best interest of the owners of the spectrum, namely the American public, represented by Congress. Regardless of the excuse or justification. The airwaves belong to the public, and the public should be able to receive them everywhere at no cost.

Looks like there is an agenda or maybe a mandate to make the cell phone/smart phone an all in one communications device. Soon this device can be worn on our shirts and we can just tap it to communicate with someone. Yet somehow transporting someone from one place to another and warp drive seems slow to evolve.

Live Long and Prosper.

 

[Casey]

FM integration makes little to no sense at all. First of all, how many people actually tune in to FM stations during an emergency? Unless you want to hear Lady Gaga, probably no one. Besides the mandated alerts, the vast majority of FM stations do not have any sort of emergency alerts. AM radio is the emergency king.

Secondly, how many people would actually use it? Probably almost no one? If a person has a dumb phone, what are the chances they will listen to FM radio on their phone with the very poor quality speaker? If a person has a smart phone, what are the chances they will want to listen to FM over a streaming internet station or service. In both cases, probably a very small percent of phone owners would use the FM radio.

Thirdly, there are already cell phones with FM tuners. If you notice, they are not exactly a hot item. Most people who get the phones probably do not even know they have an FM radio.

Fourthly, reception is terrible. In order to get good reception, you need an antenna of some kind. Most likely, a headset wire is used. That is very inconvenient for the users. Not to mention, if you are in an emergency, what are the chances you will have one of those wires lying nearby? Unless the phone owners lives within a few miles of a full power station, chances are they will not get any signals with an antenna.

The NAB truly does not care all that much about FM integration. What they truly want is HD FM integration.

 

[MattParker]

Why FM but not AM? The stations that (still) do any local news are almost all on AM and that's where people would go in an emergency. FM stations might carry the emergency announcement but then they go back to their format and you'd miss the announcement.

Why not HD radio? If these devices are supposed to be state of the art, why use a 70 year old technology?

An emergency voice and text blast to all cell phones in the area seems more feasible and more effective.

That said, my "media phone" has FM. I didn't ask for it. I never use it. It only works with (wired) ear plugs - not Bluetooth, not the built-in speakers, not the built in FM transmitter. The device is an excellent Internet radio (which is why I picked it - a Nokia N85) and a terrible FM radio; it picks up only the stronger signals (about half the stations a little FM headset I got years ago at Radio Shack for $20 receives).

Mandatory FM is a desperation move by broadcaster and shows how clueless most are about the marketplace and about new technology.

What they should be doing is backing improved streaming media player apps and dedicated station apps for smart phones. Some are doing this, notably public radio, but often only for the iPhone (like they don't realize there are other operating systems and most smart phone users use one of them) - but Android, Blackberry, Windows7, WebOS and Symbian (software is available to developers to port apps to various OS'). They also need to restore "dial-up" (lower bandwidth) streams for mobile listeners now that carriers are phasing out "all you can eat" plans and charging for bandwidth use. There is a lot of potential for terrestrial broadcasters with mobile Internet listeners but, as usual, they are blowing it.

 

[Casey]

Why FM but not AM? The stations that (still) do any local news are almost all on AM and that's where people would go in an emergency. FM stations might carry the emergency announcement but then they go back to their format and you'd miss the announcement.

Why not HD radio? If these devices are supposed to be state of the art, why use a 70 year old technology?

An emergency voice and text blast to all cell phones in the area seems more feasible and more effective.

That said, my "media phone" has FM. I didn't ask for it. I never use it. It only works with (wired) ear plugs - not Bluetooth, not the built-in speakers, not the built in FM transmitter. The device is an excellent Internet radio (which is why I picked it - a Nokia N85) and a terrible FM radio; it picks up only the stronger signals (about half the stations a little FM headset I got years ago at Radio Shack for $20 receives).

Mandatory FM is a desperation move by broadcaster and shows how clueless most are about the marketplace and about new technology.

What they should be doing is backing improved streaming media player apps and dedicated station apps for smart phones. Some are doing this, notably public radio, but often only for the iPhone (like they don't realize there are other operating systems and most smart phone users use one of them) - but Android, Blackberry, Windows7, WebOS and Symbian (software is available to developers to port apps to various OS'). They also need to restore "dial-up" (lower bandwidth) streams for mobile listeners now that carriers are phasing out "all you can eat" plans and charging for bandwidth use. There is a lot of potential for terrestrial broadcasters with mobile Internet listeners but, as usual, they are blowing it.

The hardware required to receive AM is more difficult to integrate than that needed for FM. That would be the reason they are not pushing for AM. But I agree 100% with AM being the source of emergency information.

Stations need to start streaming more in AAC, AAC+ or Ogg Vorbis. Their determination to stay with inferior codecs like MP3 or WMA is simply poor innovation. I realize that AAC+ requires licensing fees, but the others do not. These codecs would enable them to have higher quality streams at lower bits rates. It would save both the station and the user money due to a decrease in bandwidth. Yet very few stations actually use these, or make it hard for you to use the stream if they have it. Low bit rate Ogg Vorbis is open-source, and it sounds very good compared to MP3, WMA and even AAC. I would even say it is better than AAC+, but that is debatable. I hope more more stations start using it.

 

[V.Riley]

The reason Radio isn't going crazy on AAC+, even though it is better, is because players that can receive that are not wide spread, and also you can do so with a lower bit rate, but the public perception is that a Higher number is better quality. The end result is the audience is not quite up to speed on this, and Radio wants more bang for their buck. Given the audience is still hugging the MP3 streams, that is why Radio hasn't embraced AAC+. Ogg Vorbis better quality and open source, but even less people have heard of it compared to AAC+.

 

[radiosgalore]

Fourthly, reception is terrible. In order to get good reception, you need an antenna of some kind. Most likely, a headset wire is used. That is very inconvenient for the users. Not to mention, if you are in an emergency, what are the chances you will have one of those wires lying nearby? Unless the phone owners lives within a few miles of a full power station, chances are they will not get any signals with an antenna.

The NAB truly does not care all that much about FM integration. What they truly want is HD FM integration.

thats even crazier though. FM can be semi decent but HD radio is a joke. Unless they made some drastic changes since i was last on this board power is lower, coverage is almost hopeless and whats more being a digital system its going to drain a smart phone that already won't have great battery life

Not just that but AM stations arent exactly doing great over there from all ive heard. tbh I don't really see the point in FM in phones as they are notorious for being terrible. My HTC Desire is shockingly bad

 

[Casey]

Pretty much everything you stated still applies. They did get the right to increase their transmitting power, but very few stations appear to have done so.

FM radio in smart phones is and always will be an after thought. They will always remain poor quality because it is a phone, not an FM radio. Even if it were mandated that all phones have an FM radio, there are no standards on just what that radio must do and how it should perform. Even if there were standards, how would it be enforced?

I considered a Desire when it was free a week ago, but I never even knew it had an FM radio. If I had gotten the phone, I probably would have never used the FM radio. I instead would have used it for shoutcast streams and Slacker.

 

[flashback]

Great idea, but the recording industry doesn't care about weather news.

But is this not the excuse justification reason being given to the feds?

The mandatory FM inclusion is part of the NAB deal with the RIAA. Broadening the availability of FM is in the best interest of the owners of the spectrum, namely the American public, represented by Congress. Regardless of the excuse or justification. The airwaves belong to the public, and the public should be able to receive them everywhere at no cost.

do you trust the cellphone companies to make the access of fm reception on a cellphone free?i envision it being charged for .either extra money a month to get or charge by usage.

 

[radiosgalore]

ok not sure what happened but I had a lovely reply all typed out and when i tried to post i was told i had already posted it yet it didnt display.Perhaps tech support would like to look into this. anyway....

I considered a Desire when it was free a week ago, but I never even knew it had an FM radio. If I had gotten the phone, I probably would have never used the FM radio.

Little point the FM radio is shocking. Only gets local stations and even the ones from nearby areas that most radios would still get in full stereo the phone gets nothing

Pretty much everything you stated still applies. They did get the right to increase their transmitting power, but very few stations appear to have done so

and that says it all. I don't know if you have anything like yearly or quarterly listening stats for stations but i'm guessing HD radio is tiny. And an increase in power on AM can only serve to further affect the 500 watt station of the road thats gonna get battered by the clear channel station 200 miles away