Published in Mobiles

iPhone 7 suffers from a bad case of Intel modems

by on21 October 2016


Intel modems not that hot

It seems that a row is brewing between Apple fanboys who were given a phone with an Intel modem and those who have something from Qualcomm instead.

For those who came in late, Apple installed Intel modems into some species of its iPhone 7 in a move to keep Qualcomm from getting too cocky. The A1778 and A1784 iPhone models use a GSM-only Intel XMM7360 modem while the A1660 and 1661 iPhone models use a GSM/CDMA-compatible Qualcomm MDM9645M modem.

However, already there are some complaints as the GSM-only Intel modem is not compatible with as many carrier networks as the GSM/CDMA Qualcomm modem.

Now to make matters worse, independent testing conducted by Cellular Insights  suggests there are some significant performance differences between the two modems, with the Qualcomm modem cleaning the Intel modem’s clock in most tests.

Using an R&S TS7124 RF Shielded Box, two R&S CMW500, one R&S CMWC controller, and four Vivaldi antennas, Cellular Insights created a setup to simulate LTE performance at different distances from a cellular tower using two iPhone 7 Plus devices, one with an Intel modem and one with a Qualcomm modem.

Three LTE bands were tested: Band 12, Band 4 (the most common band in North America), and Band 7. In all three tests, both the iPhone 7 Plus models offered similar performance in ideal conditions, but as power levels decreased, Cellular Insights saw "unexplainable sharp dips in performance" in the Intel modem, finding a gap "north of 30%" in favour of the Qualcomm iPhone 7 Plus. In the charts, the Qualcomm modem maintains noticeably higher throughput speeds than the Intel modem as signal strength decreases.

This would suggest the Qualcomm modem does better in areas where the cellular connection is weak, with faster throughput speeds.

“Both iPhone 7 Plus variants perform similarly in ideal conditions. At -96dBm the Intel variant needed to have Transport Block Size adjusted as BLER well exceeded the 2 per cent threshold. At -105dBm the gap widened to 20%, and at -108dBm to a whopping 75 per cent. As a result of such a huge performance delta between the Intel and Qualcomm powered devices, we purchased another A1784 (AT&T) iPhone 7 Plus, in order to eliminate any possibility of a faulty device. The end result was virtually identical. [...]”

According to Cellular Insights, in every single test, the iPhone 7 Plus with a Qualcomm modem "had a significant performance edge" over the iPhone 7 Plus with an Intel modem.

comparison

Needless to say where this story is reported there are lots of Apple fanboys posting results from their Intel modems which imply that the test was all wrong. Others think it does not matter if the modem is slower than an asthmatic ant with a heavy load of shopping, at least it does not catch fire and can be used on most Airlines. Others have suggested this could be the beginning of modemGate.

Last modified on 21 October 2016
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