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Multiple rumors have claimed that Intel will supply at least a portion of LTE and Wi-Fi modems for the iPhone 7 series, alongside existing supplier Qualcomm, and a new report offers a closer look at how the orders will be divided between the companies.
Bloomberg reports that Intel modems will be reserved for AT&T iPhone 7 models, and some other versions of the smartphone sold in other countries, while Qualcomm is said to remain a supplier of modems for Verizon and all Chinese models. The wording suggests that Qualcomm may retain orders in some other regions as well.
Choosing Intel’s part for an important role in the product that generates about two-thirds of Apple’s annual revenue may represent a calculated gamble by the company. Bringing in second-source suppliers is a long-established practice by device makers looking to make sure they’re in a better position to negotiate on price. However, analysts such as Stacy Rasgon at Sanford C. Bernstein have said that Qualcomm’s modems remain ahead of Intel’s offerings in performance when measured by how much data they can get from the network into the phone.
Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf previously hinted that the chipmaker would be losing modem orders from one of its major customers to one of its leading competitors, although it is reportedly still "retaining a major chunk" of Apple's business rather than being dropped as a supplier entirely.
Taiwanese website DigiTimes recently reported that Intel would supply "up to 50 percent" of modems for the iPhone 7 series, while CLSA Securities analyst Srini Pajjuri told investors in March that Intel's share of orders would be a "significant portion," likely falling in range of 30 to 40 percent of production.
Apple is rumored to use Intel's XMM 7360 LTE modem [PDF] with faster theoretical download speeds up to 450 Mbps and upload speeds up to 100 Mbps. Meanwhile, Qualcomm's X12 modem is a likely candidate for the iPhone 7, with theoretical download speeds up to 600 Mbps and upload speeds up to 150 Mbps.
Both rumored Intel and Qualcomm modems would be capable of faster speeds than the MDM9635 chipset in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which provides theoretical download speeds up to 300 Mbps and upload speeds up to 50 Mbps. However, real-world speeds are often slower due to network limitations.
Top Rated Comments
When it comes to LTE modems, the advertised peak speed is essentially short-hand for a bundle of underlying technologies.
For example, an LTE modem that supports 450 Mbps peak download speed (Cat 9) means that it features:
* Aggregating three LTE connections simultaneously
* Receiving data on two antennas simultaneously
* Enough signal processing horsepower to decode a max of 6 bits out of information out of every LTE transmission received from the tower.
On the other hand, a modem that support 600 Mbps peak download speed (Cat 12) means that in addition to all of the above, it can decode 8 bits out of every LTE transmission from the tower. It also supports features like receiving data on 4 antennas simultaneously instead of only 2.
Now, why do you as the user care?
Because receiving data on 3 connections simultaneously is faster than receiving on only one connection. The typical LTE smartphone has peak 150 Mbps LTE download speed, which is possible with only one LTE connection. Let's say that out of the 150 peak, you're getting 9.9 Mbps in the real world. Well, now let's say you have a modem with 450 Mbps peak. That 9.9 could become ~ 30 Mbps. Triple the actual real-world speed. And if you had a modem that went further by supporting the more sophisticated signal processing, that real-world speed gets an addition 33% boost, going from 30 Mbps to 40 Mbps.
So will you ever achieve those peak theoretical speeds? No. But what you will really get is the *relative gain*. That's the important thing here. These features are all speed multipliers, independent of what the absolute value of the speeds you're getting.
Here's a video that shows the effect of carrier aggregation - going from 110 Mbps to 220 Mbps peak on Sprint's network. Did the phone with carrier aggregation actually get 220 Mbps? No. But it did get twice the speed of the phone that doesn't support carrier aggregation.
And yes indeed, these feature are actually really launched in other networks around the world. Australia, South Korea, Japan...and they will indeed be launched in the US over the next year. How long does the average user keep their phone? Having these features built into the phone means that a year after purchase the phone gets better as the operators turn on those features in their networks. How many other technologies inside a phone get better with age instead of worse?