No more locking on 2G for the iPhone 4S

People locking their phones on 2G has long been an issue for network operators. Reason being is that 2G networks have long been viewed as "end of life" and no new investment should be made on them. However quite a lot of people find that when their phones are on the 2G network their battery lasts longer and also that 2G networks seem to be more reliable.

Historically all phones could be locked to 2G through their menu, so it was very straight forward for a customer to make that choice. This meant that even though "2G only" devices are hard to find these days, the traffic on 2G networks was on the increase. 

Considering then that all phones allow the user to lock to 2G, I was quite surpised to find out that Apple made the decision to disable that capability on the iPhone 4S. Whether this was done due to pressure from operators or whether Apple believe that their customers can get a better user experience on 3G networks (from a data throughput point of view), is hard to say. Some people have said that Siri was the main reason which requires a high speed data connection to send the spoken command to Apple's voice analysis servers.

For whatever reason, it is a fact (as shown on the menu pictures below) and it will be very interesting to see how this develops. Could other handset manufacturers follow suit or will Apple regret the decision and re-enable the functionality through a SW update? Time will tell..

iPhone 4 with "Enable 3G" option

iPhone 4S with no option to lock to 2G