Does iPhone 16 support the optional 4096-QAM Wi-Fi 7 feature?

iPhone 16

Apple has just published a new and very useful Wi-Fi specification document which answers this question.

Note the Maximum MCS index column

What is 4096-QAM?

It is the latest modulation technique that allows the access point and Wi-Fi client to send even more data over the air than ever before. Effectively, it adds 2 new MCS indexes 12 and 13 and unlocks faster data rates.

4096-QAM MCS indexes, credit to http://mcsindex.net

Achieving it is challenging as it requires very high Signal to Noise Radio (SNR) – that’s very strong signal and low noise. So in practical terms, it is only used quite rarely.

For context, with another client device using Intel BE200 Wi-Fi 7 adapter, I hit MCS 12 with SNR about 60-62 dB. In other words, if my noise floor was -95 dBm, my signal would have to be about -35 dBm.

Does iPhone 16 support it then?

According to the above spec sheet, the maximum Extremely High Throughput (EHT) the iPhone can achieve is MCS 11. 4096-QAM only uses MCS indexes 12 and 13. Check the mcsindex.net site.

So, the answer is no, it doesn’t.

Is it a dealbreaker?

From data rate perspective, even without 4096-QAM, and using 160 MHz wide channel, we are talking 2000+Mbps! Obviously depending on how far you are from the access point.

So I personally can’t complain. I value access to the clean 6 GHz spectrum, low latency and low retransmissions rate over maximum throughput.

My WAN link speed of 900 Mbps is my personal bottleneck and I usually don’t transfer huge amounts of data from the phone.

High Tx (transmit) and Rx (receive) rates

On a laptop, I can imagine 4096-QAM to deliver much more value when it comes to performing backups for moving very large software image or video files. Having said that, don’t forget that there is 2.5, 5 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet for that.

Published by

Jiri Brejcha

Jiri is passionate about mobility ranging from Wi-Fi to folding bikes;-) He is a Wi-Fi Technical Solutions Architect at Cisco UK, proud member of the Cisco Live Network Operations Center deployment team, and WLAN Pi development team. If he is not working, he is most likely riding his Brompton bike. All opinions are my own, not Cisco's.

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