Samsung users in the US and Canada may soon enjoy using their mobile phones. Why? Because the mobile company is planning to team up with NextRadio to enable the FM service.
Samsung partners with NextRadio for FM service
Reports say that Samsung smartphones will be installed with FM chips. These new phones will be sold in both US and Canada. Tech users claim that all smartphones are manufactured with an FM chip. However, manufacturers do not unlock these FM chips, rendering them useless.
Samsung is not the only mobile company that NextRadio agreed. Before the South Korea-based company, LG has teamed with NextRadio back in August. Apart from LG and Samsung, Sprint also partnered with NextRadio app back in 2013.
So how about the Cupertino-based giant Apple? There was an instance that Apple was asked to activate the FM capability in their iPhones. According to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, he once asked Apple to activate the FM chips inside iPhones. But the company said most of its iPhones don’t have FM capability.
While the concept of radio seems outdated for some, it has many uses. First and foremost, radio is free. And the NextRadio app which connects to FM stations across US and Canada is using meagre resources compared to the mainstream streaming services.
Lastly, in case of emergency, FM radio is by far the most reliable to send and receive information. Despite the many uses of radio, most of the smartphones have no access to FM radio because they lack the hardware capacity to unlock the FM chips.
Back in February 2017, the FCC said that it wanted all smartphones to activate the FM chips so that users would be able to maximize its use such as access to local radio stations.
