Almost all smartphones sold in the US today, including the iPhone, have an FM chip inside their LTE modems. However, carriers and phone manufacturers keep the chip disabled, likely for financial reasons.
Ajit Pai, who was appointed chairman of the US FCC in January, would like to see more phones have these FM receivers enabled. 
“You could turn on the chips for public safety reasons alone,” he said (PDF) at the North American Association's Future of Radio and Audio Symposium this week.
Although he would like connection providers and device manufacturers to enable FM receivers, he said he would not force anyone to enable them and would let the market decide.
Pai pointed out that only 44% of smartphones have the FM chip enabled in the US and a much smaller percentage in Canada, compared to 80% in Mexico.
If Apple were to enable the FM chip in the iPhone, it would likely boost FM activations dramatically overall. As MacRumors reports, Pai's study found that 94 percent of phones that don't have FM chips enabled are iPhones.
Pai pointed out several benefits of enabling it. For example, using the FM chip would extend battery life and reduce cellular data usage. The chip would also allow for emergency notifications when the wireless network is overloaded.
Some carriers, such as AT&T and Sprint, recently decided to enable the FM chip on Android devices, and the move appears to have had an impact. Pai said that the share of enabled FM chips had increased by 25 percent compared to chips that were enabled two years ago.
“As more and more Americans have FM chips enabled in their smartphones, consumer demand should continue to grow.”
