Intel Breaks Qualcomm's Hold On Apple's Baseband Chips (wsj.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader randomErr writes: In a big blow to Qualcomm, Apple plans to incorporate Intel baseband chips into at least some models of the new iPhone 7. The selection of Intel chip means that in newer iPhones Apple will no longer support CDMA technology popularized by Qualcomm. The Wall Street Journal states that many industry analysts believe Intel could be supplying as many as half of of baseband chips for Apple's handsets.
This was the last key iPhone component that didn't have two sources, and the Journal estimates that Intel's revenues could now increase by up to $700 million before the end of 2016.

Comments

The iPhone 7/7+ still support CDMA

[JoeyRox]

They have to - Verizon and Spring still need to finish deploying more GSM/LTE spectrum before they can finally abandon CDMA. Until then Apple still has to buy chips from Qualcomm for phones sold into Verizon/Sprint customers. The difference for the 7/7+ is that Apple has a GSM/LTE-only SKU that uses the Intel chips, for AT&T and T-Mobile (and global) customers.

Re:The iPhone 7/7+ still support CDMA

[Lord Apathy]

Both GSM and CDMA are on the way out. The way phone makers and carriers are going is called Voice over LTE. Which basically means that in the future voice will be encoded and carried over the data LTE lines instead of a separate voice only system.

The theory is this will make phones simpler, free up radio spectrum for other uses, and improve call quality. And it will. I have tested some voice over LTE hand sets and the call quality is much better than over GSM and CDMA.

Re:CDMA won the GSM vs CDMA standards war

[swb]

If the people saying the U.S. should've adopted GSM had gotten their wish, our cellular data speeds today would probably be down below 1 Mbps. When a competitor introduces a far-superior product, it forces the other players in the market to improve, instead of sitting on their asses not improving things because people are paying them anyway.

The contra to this argument is that differing standards forced carrier lock-in, keeping consumers stuck with a device that wouldn't work on other carrier networks, allowing them to it on their asses and not improving things because people couldn't easily leave the carriers they were on.

Had the US adopted a carrier-neutral standard users could have easily switched carriers without buying a new device and device portability and consumer choice would have driven carrier improvements instead of consumers being forced to sit around and wait for a carrier to adopt improvements to their unique signalling.