Q: Why did Intel kill off their Modem Program?

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“There is no way to sugar coat Intel’s modem story, it has been a flaming disaster from the start,” Charlie Demerjian writes for SemiAccurate. “Intel bought no less than four complete cellular modem units or hired their teams, Infineon, Via Telecom, and Motorola are the big additions in their quest to make things work. One after another pieces were added to plug the holes in the dam but there was no chance of it succeeding. From the beginning it was obvious to any onlooker that the Intel cellular modem program was untenable.”

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“There were other train wrecks along the way but the core problem was simple, Intel promised OEMs and device makers a certain set of specs for their upcoming products. The device makers took this on faith and built products based on that promise,” Demerjian writes. “Intel failed to deliver on time or on spec, usually both, and the device ended up being out of place or out of price in the market. None of them were successful.”

“This sad state of affairs is the key to the knifing of Intel’s modem program, the company quite literally never delivered a modem that worked right. The most glaring example of this was the iPhone 7 which had both Intel and Qualcomm variants. On paper it was a 1Gb LTE device but Apple only delivered a 600Mbps iPhone,” Demerjian writes. “That same 600Mbps Qualcomm modem in the iPhone ran at 1Gbps in Android devices. The Intel modem ran at 600Mbps max and there were no other customers to make a comparison to. Apple crippled their Qualcomm parts to match the delivered Intel specs.”

Read more in the full article here.