RADIO LIFELINE
Hurricane survivors urge Apple to turn on iPhones’ FM chips for emergency purposes,
WASHINGTON— For 19 non-stop hours as Hurricane Irma lashed Florida, disc jockey Nio Fernandez broadcast updates in Spanish from the 92.5 Maxima radio studios in St. Petersburg, fielding updates from those trapped in their homes as wind and rain whipped through the area.
“There was a sense of desperation in people’s voices,” he said of callers to the station. “They needed to know what was happening.”
Fernandez’s efforts made it possible for listeners who had lost power, cell or internet service — as many in the region had — to keep up with the storm’s progress using FM radio chips embedded in their smartphones.
But not iPhone users. Though the phone includes the FM chip, Apple Inc. has chosen not to activate the feature, a move critics say could be putting lives in danger.
The issue has drawn fresh scrutiny following hurricanes that devastated Puerto Rico and parts of Texas and Florida. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida is leading calls for mobile-phone manufacturers to activate the FM radio chips embedded in nearly all smartphones. Those exhortations have been mainly directed at Apple, whose iPhone accounts for more than 40 per cent of the U.S. smartphone market.
“Broadcasters are providing information on how to evacuate quickly, where floodwaters are raging, how to get out of harm’s way if there’s a tornado or a hurricane,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesperson for the National Association of Broadcasters. “The notion that Apple or anyone else would block this type of information is something that we find fairly troubling.”
The group, which represents radiostation owners, has been lobbying the industry for several years to allow phone users access to the FM radio feature. Now, many of the major manufacturers — including Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc. and Motorola Solutions Inc. — allow the use of the chip. Apple is the only major holdout, according to Wharton.
Critics say Apple doesn’t want to cannibalize its streaming service by giving iPhone owners access to free radio service over the airwaves.
“If technologies, such as radio chips, exist that will help do that during times of emergencies then companies should be doing everything in their power to employ their use.” DENNIS WHARTON NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS SPOKESPERSON
An Apple spokesperson said the company wouldn’t comment on the matter. While surveying the damage caused by Hurricane Irma, Nelson told WBBH-TV in Fort Myers, Fla., “There’s got to be a way we can activate the chip.” A spokesperson for the senator said he was considering writing phone manufacturers on the issue but hasn’t called for a mandate.
“The bottom line is consumers need critical information in times of emergency,” Nelson said. “If technologies, such as radio chips, exist that will help do that during times of emergencies then companies should be doing everything in their power to employ their use.”
Broadcast radio is often the most durable form of communication during large-scale disasters when other infrastructure fails, said Jamie Barnett, the former public safety chief of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Allowing people to tune in through their phones would allow them to stay informed in drastic circumstances like those recently seen in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, said Barnett, a lawyer at Venable LLP in Washington.
In August 2013, the radio industry, in co-operation with Sprint, introduced the NextRadio app, which allowed users to listen to FM radio either through the chip embedded in their phones or by streaming stations over the internet. Last month, internet streaming through the app became available on Apple iOS, but the company didn’t move to unlock FM chips in their phones.
The FM feature is included with the Qualcomm chips installed in virtually every smartphone on the market today, including the iPhone. However, not all device manufacturers choose to enable the function, according to a Qualcomm spokesperson.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai devoted several minutes of a speech at a February symposium in Washington to the benefits of activating FM radio chips in smartphones. He said that, as of last year, only 44 per cent of smartphones in the U.S. had their FM chips activated. In Mexico, that number is 80 per cent, Pai said.
“It seems odd that every day we hear about a new smartphone app that lets you do something innovative, yet these modern-day mobile miracles don’t enable a key function offered by a 1982 Sony Walkman,” he said. At the same time, he has refused to call for a mandate requiring the chip be activated in the phones and has expressed doubt that the FCC would be able to issue or enforce one.
Pai renewed his calls for manufacturers to enable the chip during a recent trip to areas of southern Florida devastated by Hurricane Irma, telling a local TV station that the chips were valuable, “especially when it’s an emergency.”
CTIA, a trade association representing the wireless industry, opposes requirements that chips be turned on and said people can choose for themselves whether they want a phone with an activated FM chip.
“The marketplace is working and consumers are in the best position to choose the devices that meet their needs,” said Scott Bergmann, the CTIA vice-president for regulatory affairs, in a statement. “We concur with FCC Chairman Pai that there is no legal or factual basis for a government mandate.”
For his part, Fernandez said the ability to listen to radio broadcasts through the FM chip would be “instrumental” in a disaster. “Because you just don’t know what will happen.”