A few weeks ago, we ran all over town comparing upload and download speeds of the iPhone 16e with Apple’s new C1 modem against the iPhone 16 with Qualcomm’s X71M. The results were clear: Qualcomm was winning, hands-down.
At the time, we cautioned that this was just in one metropolitan area (in several varied locations) on one carrier and that more thorough results would require testing all over the map on all major carriers. Still, it was better than most of the data we saw in the early reviews, which often ran a single test in a single location and concluded it was close enough.
Now, Ookla, the makers of the same Speedtest app we used, have published a report using real-world data on early iPhone 16e adopters, comparing it against the iPhone 16. Across 12 days (March 1-12), using data from Speedtest users on all three major U.S. carriers, Ookla saw different results than our one-city, one-carrier test.
In short, according to Ookla’s data, Apple’s C1 modem can beat or match Qualcomm’s X71M most of the time, but there are some caveats worth nothing.
Ookla
The 10th percentile—users in the bottom 10 percent of performance results—actually had a better mean download speed with Apple’s C1 modem. That’s the opposite of our findings, where the C1 modem performed especially poorly in areas where the connection was quite weak.
Users in the top 10 percent saw significantly faster mean download speeds with the iPhone 16, likely due to its support of mmWave and 4x downlink carrier aggregation. The overall results, the median users, were very nearly even. The upload speed results varied by carrier, with T-Mobile users showing similar performance between the iPhone 16e and iPhone 16 while AT&T or Verizon users saw Apple’s C1 pull ahead. Again, this differs from our experience using Verizon’s network.
It all just goes to show that cellular testing is messy and complicated. Every variable makes a big difference: location, carrier, weather, how busy the nearby cells are at the moment, whether the test is done indoors or not, and so much more. The best results come from performing the most tests, and in that regard, Ookla’s report is likely the most accurate performance measure we have so far.
It’s also worth mentioning that the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro do not have Qualcomm’s best modems: the X71M is inferior to the newer X80 and X85. At the end of the day, Apple’s C1 modem has succeeded where it matters most: It’s neither faster nor slower enough to make iPhone 16e users comment on it, and reliable enough not to cause a stir. Apple swapped out Qualcomm’s modems for one of its own, and outside of the tech press and a handful of geeky enthusiasts, nobody noticed.
