AT&T urges Android smartphone makers to enable FM radio chips

Since the introduction of the modern smart phone many have been fighting for these platforms to have free FM radio capability.

While activation timing is expected for all new Android smartphones that are released in 2016 there’s hope that some phones will be ready with it by the end of this year. That will put the pressure on Android handset makers to turn the FM radios on if they want to sell on AT&T. It’s been the case many times where the global version of a device had an FM radio but the US version didn’t. This was all part of a plan developed years ago and it’s all coming to fruition.

Sprint, the fourth largest carrier, was the first US carrier to support FM in smartphones, beginning in 2013. Within 45 days of that message AT&T came to us and said let’s make a deal. Furthermore, they claim that AT&T will work with manufacturers to activate the FM radios that are already included in existing AT&T phones, but which have been left unpowered and inaccessible to software.

Since most Android smartphone manufacturers include an FM receiver chip in their devices by default, the issues has always been whether or not the carrier that sells the phone specifies it should be activated. It points out that having active FM reception on these smartphones will allow for features like song tagging which will appeal to a younger demographic. “It would be hard to determine what the actual revenue potential for radio will be from the interactivity on NextRadio but there is no question it provides another great opportunity for advertisers to directly connect with radio’s mobile listeners”.