Phone 17 5G modems will be made by MediaTek, as Apple moves away from Qualcomm. Future iPhones will use Apple's solutions instead.

Per Apple, it's "the first modem designed by Apple." Given that all previous iPhones also had some sort of modem chip inside — for example, the iPhone 16 sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon X71M — it's easy to overlook the C1 as just another chip that makes the iPhone do basic iPhone stuff like connecting to the internet.

For example, in a congested network area, the A18 chip in the iPhone 16e can instruct the C1 modem to dynamically manage traffic, prioritizing your needs in real-time. If you’re trying to send a photo or video to someone, for instance, the A18 will tell the C1 to prioritize that network traffic over other data tasks.