Yesterday, I posted an article about the cellular radios inside the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus and the fact that there are two distinct models (Intel and Qualcomm) with two different sets of capabilities.

This article from iMore digs into this from a slightly different angle:

The iPhone 7 now supports maximum speeds of up to 450Mbps, which is a 50% jump over the iPhone 6s. Specifically, the new iPhone is a Category 10 device, which means that in addition to being able to reach those astronomical speeds of 450Mbps in the downlink (downloading data from the internet), it is able to reach speeds of 100Mbps in the uplink.

To reach these speeds, the iPhone uses a technology under the LTE standard called carrier aggregation, which combines several wireless channels, or bands, to transmit data to and from a phone. The iPhone 7 supports 3x CA in the downlink — up to three distinct bands carrying data — and 2x CA in the uplink. Unfortunately, those uplink speeds can only be achieved using a combination of Band 7 and Band 41, which currently precludes all U.S. carriers, since none of them currently operate on Band 7.

And:

Oh, and another thing: it is expected to be revealed (through upcoming teardowns) that this year’s iPhone has a baseband chip designed and manufactured by Intel, a company that has been trying to get its components into Apple’s smartphones for some time. While Qualcomm is still likely designing the baseband inside the CDMA variants of the iPhone, due to ongoing patent exclusivity, the GSM variants of the phone have likely transitioned to its Portland-based rival.

Bottom line, the value in getting the Qualcomm chip only arises if you plan to switch carriers.