This is What the 'E' That Sometimes Appears on the Top Left Hand Corner of Your Phone Really Means

​If you're ever struggling for internet on your phone, with your 3G or 4G playing silly buggers with you, sometimes you'll notice that a big capital letter 'E' arrives in their place.

But WTF does it mean? Usually it's a surefire sign that your internet signal is going to continue to be crap, and that you should just give up trying to google motivational Beyoncé quotes until you find wifi. 

What does the 'E' actually stand for, though? The people of Twitter having been asking for some while...

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But we've finally got some answers, thanks to Joe.ie​. They've informed us that the 'E' actually stands for 'EDGE', or 'Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution', in tech speak.

Apparently, EDGE was the forefather of 3G or 4G, back in the days where we didn't actually use the internet on our phones, most likely because it took about three hours to load anything. EDGE will be present anywhere that cannot connect to a 3G or 4G network.

The 'E' isn't ​quite ​as bad as the GPRS you might also have seen in the top left hand corner of your phone. That stands for General Packet Radio Service and basically means 'don' bother with the internet right now at all'.

The only thing worse than THAT is no service at all. Which, in our on demand modern day lifestyle, isn't ideal at all.

Well, you learn something new every day.

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