The iPhone uses a pretty simplified and minimalistic interface which is great 99% of the time, but occasionally it does show some icons that come without labels which I don’t understand.

For instance, I was trying to figure out what a solid blue square in the iPhone’s status bar meant. And sometimes it appears as a capital “E. Well, it turns out that the “E” means that the iPhone is connected to the EDGE network.

The solid blue square indicates that the iPhone can’t find a nearby EDGE network, and is instead connecting via standard GPRS. Generally, GPRS offer slower data transfer rates relative to an EDGE connection. Funny thing is, I seem to get these icons appearing when I’m 100% sure that I’m not connected to EDGE or GPRS.

Update:
To disable GPRS (or disable EDGE), here’s what you need to do:

Jailbroken / Unlocked iPhones
Download and install the Bossprefs application on to your iPhone. it’ll help you manage all your connection settings (which includes GPRS/EDGE). Using that, you can set GPRS/EDGE to “off”.

Un-jailbroken iPhones (Contributed by Lor)
Go Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network: Set the APN name to DISABLED (or any other random name). Whenever the iPhone tries to switch to GPRS mode, the connection will be failing (and you will not be charged). Simple is good

Make sure you also disable “Data Roaming” from the Network menu. Also, in “Fetch New Data”, disable the “Push” and set “Fetch” to “Manually” (this last step should not be required, but do it just in case).

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