Apple’s first in-house modem, the C1, is now being tested in the iPhone 16e, and early results suggest its performance varies depending on the network.
Testing from Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence, shared with iPhone in Canada, shows that while the modem performs well in some situations, it falls short in others when compared to the Qualcomm-powered iPhone 16.
Ookla’s analysis, conducted between March 1 and March 12, focused on major U.S. carriers—AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. The findings reveal that iPhone 16e users on AT&T and Verizon experienced better median download speeds than those using the iPhone 16.
However, on T-Mobile’s network, the iPhone 16 outperformed the 16e by a significant margin. The difference may be due to T-Mobile’s advanced 5G Standalone (SA) network, which uses carrier aggregation (CA) and other optimizations that Apple’s C1 modem does not yet fully support.
While the iPhone 16e struggles in peak performance scenarios, it excels in worst-case conditions, offering higher speeds in areas with weaker signals. Upload speeds were also slightly better on the iPhone 16e for AT&T and Verizon, though T-Mobile users saw only a minor improvement. One key limitation of the iPhone 16e is that it does not support mmWave, making it the first U.S. iPhone to lack access to this high-frequency 5G spectrum.
Apple’s move away from Qualcomm modems marks a big shift, but the C1 modem appears to lack some of the more advanced features found in Qualcomm’s models. The iPhone 16e is designed to be more power-efficient, with a larger battery and longer battery life compared to the iPhone 16, but its real-world network performance may still need refinement.
These early results are based on U.S. networks, which differ from Canada’s 5G networks here from Rogers, Telus and Bell.
In the U.S., T-Mobile operates a full 5G Standalone (SA) network, while AT&T and Verizon primarily use Non-Standalone (NSA), which relies on LTE. In Canada, Rogers was first to deploy 5G SA, while Telus did the same in the fall of 2023. Bell did launch a 5G Standalone setting for iPhone users in the spring of 2023, but it is not marketing that it has 5G SA widely available.
Since the iPhone 16e lacks advanced carrier aggregation (CA) support, its performance struggles on T-Mobile’s highly optimized SA network but may fare better on NSA networks like those of AT&T, Verizon.
Another key difference is mmWave 5G, which is widely used in U.S. cities but still nonexistent in Canada (aside from some testing). Since the iPhone 16e does not support mmWave, this won’t affect its performance much on Rogers, Bell, or Telus, which focus more on mid-band 5G (3.5 GHz).
For example, Dave2D’s test in Toronto showed the C1 outperforming the Qualcomm X71 in his iPhone 16 Pro Max by 40% (200+ Mbps vs. slower speeds on Bell’s network), likely due to dense tower coverage and optimized sub-6 GHz handling.
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