I think the key there is that Dell ships with an LTE modem, a separate device with a separate price. They pay royalties to Qualcomm on the price of the modem.
Apple would never (for some value of never) ship a laptop with an external device like that. The LTE is either baked into the laptop (at which point Qualcomm would demand a % of the entire laptop's sale price), or it's not included at all. They choose not at all.
I have no idea. I would only care how well integrated it is with the operating system. But yes, maybe this is some hardware designed against accounting constraints.
Apple would never (for some value of never) ship a laptop with an external device like that. The LTE is either baked into the laptop (at which point Qualcomm would demand a % of the entire laptop's sale price), or it's not included at all. They choose not at all.