iPhone 18 Pro Could Use Qualcomm Modem in the US and C2 Elsewhere

[platinumaqua]

Why not ? I’ve seen N77 get up to 1,500 Mbps down in certain areas but if you have a lot of people on it and if Verizon doesn’t have the capacity it will get bogged down. Realistically I usually get around 300-600 on N77. With mmWave you’re going to have much more capacity where with the amount of people on it you’ll still get a solid speed. Also Airports you’re not going to see C band. When I’m at an airport I’ve been on MmWave. With no c band you’re going to see a lot of N2 and N5 and both Verizon and AT&T is still building that out. And one of those is low band 5G.

When I traveled to Asia, I was already getting 500 Mbps speeds on LTE in their transit hubs years ago. Those stations get tens of thousands of people going through them per hour.

 

[Reason077]

A bit strange but a good move considering the quality of the C1 and C1X

Not really. US carriers want mmWave support. But mmWave is almost non-existent outside the USA, so there's no reason to ship global iPhone models with hardware to support a band that will never be used. The real question is, will Apple ever make a modem with mmWave support? Or are they betting on it ultimately being a dead-end technology?

 

[Gengar]

I think most people are fully aware that even standing under a tree will block the mmWave signal that is otherwise very close by and within line of sight. It doesn’t penetrate most buildings or even thicker windows. You basically need to be standing next to the tower, looking at it. Even if you happen to live by one, to build them out every 1,000–2,000 feet or so (basically one at every single intersection in every city) would be cost prohibitive.

I haven’t seen an ad in years but I imagine they have stopped advertising it. Never in my life have I seen it pop up on my phone, throughout Southern California.

Side note: I installed the T-Mobile test drive today as a second line and got over 1.4Gpbs on first speed test, using an iPhone Air, not being near a tower.

I’ve encountered mmWave out in the wild on all three carriers in Times Square in NYC and throughout Atlanta.

 

[Gengar]

Exactly, this reeks of people convincing themselves they don't need C2. 🤣

The C1X has been fantastic for me in Europe and rural places that my Pro phones always failed in, it's also better optimised for iOS because it's not a third party part.

mmWave is just another gimmick for US networks to charge more like 4G+ 🤣

I have the iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air (and mainly use T-Mobile). The iPhone 17 Pro Max does a better job staying connected to T-Mobile’s standalone 5G. The C1X in the iPhone Air might be more efficient for battery life, but it definitely falls back to NSA 5G much more often than the Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

 

[mtoddy]

This is simply untrue. Trees alone do not block it. Neither do most typical construction walls.

I’ve used Verizon mmWave indoors through exterior building walls, no windows, in many occasions. A local restaurant near me has a mmWave cell across the street and handily pulls over a gig down and 200+ up from inside without being near any window.

Verizon also covered another city near me for VWHI with mmWave and they only put cell sites at every other street intersection. It’s not suitable everywhere, but it’s not cost prohibitive in dense areas either.

But as I’ve explained in prior posts, the real benefits come from denser venues where tens of thousands of people are using the cellular network in a confined area, and the propagation characteristics of mmWave bands are better suited to controlling SNR while providing enough bandwidth to deliver usable service to those thousands of UE simultaneously in ways that legacy DAS installations with FR1 bands can’t do or do efficiently.

You're simply wrong. You're not using mmWave inside that building. You're using n77, which Verizon deploys on small cells everywhere. 1 gig down and 200 up is exactly what n77 is capable of and delivers all the time. mmWave is not going through walls—not even worth debating—but n77 is.

 

[Piplodocus]

Out of curiosity: who in the US uses their mmWave bit of 5G. I know it's bloody fast when it works, and although there's plenty of lower-frequency 5G here in the UK, no cellular operators (I'm aware of) support mmWave. So I'm just curious who uses it and how well it works as I know it basically needs line of sight to the basestation and is easily blocked.

 

[mtoddy]

Out of curiosity: who in the US uses their mmWave bit of 5G. I know it's bloody fast when it works, and although there's plenty of lower-frequency 5G here in the UK, no cellular operators (I'm aware of) support mmWave. So I'm just curious who uses it and how well it works as I know it basically needs line of sight to the basestation and is easily blocked.

Two main groups of users:
1. People at densely crowded venues. Think... a stadium with 100,000 shoulder-to-shoulder people, a packed airport or train terminal, carnivals/fairs, etc.
2. People who are outdoors in a place like Chicago or New York City. The whole point of this one isn't to have 5 Gig speeds, but rather to offload as much traffic as possible from the frequencies that can penetrate indoors, reserving that capacity for people who are actually indoors.

 

[mentaluproar]

How many people does mmwave actually solve a problem for?

 

[JPack]

How many people does mmwave actually solve a problem for?

Very few. mmWave is a solution born out of geopolitics due to politicians not wanting to copy China. This is why you don’t see any iPhones outside the U.S. with the antenna. No other country has actually deployed mmWave to any significant degree.

Massive stadiums and airports around the world have coverage and usable bandwidth. China for example, uses specialized antennas without the need for mmW.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

I'm surprised there's so much discourse around this. C1X has been good to me.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Do people not have 5G service and phones? I have TMobile and I get over 150MBps and even apps download in seconds.

Yes, I have 5G and an iPhone 17 Pro, but there are a few areas around me with only LTE (or even no) coverage -- these show up on the T-Mobile map. Also, while basically everywhere in my city shows 5G coverage on the T-Mobile map, there are some dead spots without reliable coverage (with LTE at best coverage on all phones I've tested). While I'm not generally in those areas for particularly long, LTE is so slow it's almost non-functional.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

mmWave you’re not going to see it in nyc streets because that’s what it is for. I’ve seen it in LGA and JFK. It’s for places that is huge like stadiums where you have a lot of people in a small space. Or like airports where you’re not going to see C band.

When I was in JFK I just used the WiFi there, no problem.

 

[technole]

TM uses mmWave with 5GUC, mainly in the dense downtown areas like LA. The big benefit is during dense crowded events like a game at crypto.com arena or SoFi, that you not only have the connectivity, but the speed really holds it own, which makes sense when you have 70k in one setting.

 

[neuropsychguy]

That's not a fault of LTE itself, but T-Mobile overloading the network. You may have 2 or 3 bars of signal strength, but it's meaningless if data can't get through the network as fast as the technology supports. Put pressure on T-Mobile to better optimize their towers and networks.

Thankfully there are just a couple areas I pass through regularly like that and I'm not in them for long. I have 5G in most places with great speed.

 

[technole]

Also the leak author saying LTE is okay must be living in 2018, the demands for today 5G is the perfect standard. The Qualcomm purchase settlement ends in March next year anyway, so they can shift those chip orders to US iPhones to cover the entire 18 line-up, and transition completely out next year.

 

[platinumaqua]

Also the leak author saying LTE is okay must be living in 2018, the demands for today 5G is the perfect standard. The Qualcomm purchase settlement ends in March next year anyway, so they can shift those chip orders to US iPhones to cover the entire 18 line-up, and transition completely out next year.

I kind of agree with Gruber here. 5G was not perceptibly faster than LTE when I used it except the huge drop in battery life.

 

[technole]

I kind of agree with Gruber here. 5G was not perceptibly faster than LTE when I used it except the huge drop in battery life.

No, its a night-and-day difference for the demanding stuff like streaming, AI, and it's why mobile gaming has taken off.

 

[hokuspokus]

That's unfortunate if true. I'd rather have power saving than mmWave 5G.

Lower band 5G is more than good enough for me and more available/practical.

 

[ksec]

mmWave 5G is such a dead end technology I kinda wish Apple wouldn’t support it in the States, as that would help hasten its end. But I get why they need to, as other phone manufacturers will absolutely point out how much slower the iPhone 18 Pro is compared to their phones, even if that comparison is only applicable in very, very rare conditions.

Now we are coming to this conclusion? I have been saying this since 2020. And everyone ( frankly speaking not just MR ) keep saying mmWave as REAL 5G. And other countries will slowly rollout mmWave to Mobile. ( There are mmWave for residential uses before MR like to jump in )

We are in 2026, coming to 2027. And it is still US only.

 

[xpxp2002]

You're simply wrong. You're not using mmWave inside that building. You're using n77, which Verizon deploys on small cells everywhere. 1 gig down and 200 up is exactly what n77 is capable of and delivers all the time. mmWave is not going through walls—not even worth debating—but n77 is.

I’m not wrong. You weren’t there, you have no clue.

The cell that I was using only had mmWave because I saw the radios and know what component carriers were in use. Verizon hadn’t even deployed C-band at the time due to the concerns with aviation altimeters.

It isn’t worth debating because you’re clearly determined to believe something that others have proven false.

 

[platinumaqua]

No, its a night-and-day difference for the demanding stuff like streaming, AI, and it's why mobile gaming has taken off.

Video streaming services tops out at 25 Mbps for 4K, which a) not everyone can stream that quality due to plan limitations, b) LTE can easily handle, and c) not even necessary for phones since the screen doesn't even have that many pixels.

 

[noraa]

I'm not buying the stadium/dense argument for mmWave. Other countries around the world with high population densities get by without using mmWave.

So do most places/stadiums in the US; mmWave really hasn't been implemented in that many places due to its cost and complexity. That doesn't mean that mmWave isn't useful in those kind of high density settings, if anything it's really the only situation in which mmWave can make a big difference, it just such a niche setting that most carriers around the world haven't bothered to adopt it.

 

[noraa]

I’m not wrong. You weren’t there, you have no clue.

The cell that I was using only had mmWave because I saw the radios and know what component carriers were in use. Verizon hadn’t even deployed C-band at the time due to the concerns with aviation altimeters.

It isn’t worth debating because you’re clearly determined to believe something that others have proven false.

No, you're absolutely wrong. mmWave is physically incapable of penetrating walls in any useable manner by your phone. This isn't something that is up for debate, this is a matter of physics. Whatever signal your phone was showing you that claimed it was connected to Verizon's mmWave towers was simply Verizon lying to you.

 

[neuropsychguy]

No, you're absolutely wrong. mmWave is physically incapable of penetrating walls in any useable manner by your phone. This isn't something that is up for debate, this is a matter of physics. Whatever signal your phone was showing you that claimed it was connected to Verizon's mmWave towers was simply Verizon lying to you.

Different commenter here. This isn’t mmWave indoors? That was just a trial, but Verizon has been doing various indoor trials with it.

Samsung and Verizon Begin Trials of New Indoor Cell Sites to Extend 5G Coverage

Samsung Electronics America and Verizon recently began lab trials on new 5G mmWave in-building solutions which, when commercially launched, will provide 5G mmWave coverage inside facilities such as hospitals, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, schools, ports, retail stores and more. The...

news.samsung.com

 

[xpxp2002]

No, you're absolutely wrong. mmWave is physically incapable of penetrating walls in any useable manner by your phone. This isn't something that is up for debate, this is a matter of physics. Whatever signal your phone was showing you that claimed it was connected to Verizon's mmWave towers was simply Verizon lying to you.

Are you a physicist? I’ve worked in the industry. I’ve been doing this stuff for decades. I’ve done the tests myself. But sure, Verizon lied to me with multi gig speed tests from a mmWave small cell that was visually confirmed and verified by field test through the exterior wall of the restaurant.

People have been spouting this nonsense about "mmWave doesn’t work through walls, through trees, through body tissue" for years. It’s simply not true. Cover the mmWave antenna on your phone and induce your phone to bond some mmWave component carriers — it’ll work.

mmWave attentuates almost the same over distance in clear air than through most other outdoor materials/bodies. There are some building materials that will significantly degrade it, but wood frame and a drywall panel isn’t enough in many circumstances. The distance to and power configuration of the radio will make a difference, but a dense mmWave deployment on urban street corners, as you often see with Verizon, typically covers the interior rooms facing and closest to the radio as long as there are no additional obstructions. And that is because it is engineered that way.