Cell Mapper

[blowdart18]

I have been looking on the internet for a comprehensive cell tower map, so that I could determine where all the towers were. I see that http://www.cellmapper.net/ has been mentioned a few times on this forum for good reasons and for not so good reasons.

The main reason people don't recommend it is that the information is not reliable, and the towers are not where they should be.

I also see that this is an opensource program, you download an app and drive around picking up data points, this correlates to where towers should be based on data received.

Has anybody committed to actually improving the data points, driving around with their phone on this app collecting data. Obviously the more data the program has the more accurate the points should be ?

So I am going to try and drive with this app each day, taking different routes and uploading them for the greater Pretoria region. Each week I will post a new screen dump of the map to see the differences as we track along to see if I am actually making a differance to the data.

Anybody in Pretoria is welcome to join by downloading the app. I am on Vodacom, so will be tracking Vodacom Data only.
http://www.cellmapper.net/apps

 

[The_MAC]

I'm assuming that you were using LTE on that route?

From the looks of it, all that the app is doing is measuring your received level and then assigning a Cell/Site-ID to that physical location, essentially plotting a route. This will not really tell you where the tower is, as you could be served by a tower that is not right next to you at that location, but much further out, depending which ones signal is strongest and best.

It looks similar to MyMobileCoverage

 

[blowdart18]

True . . . . but reading on the website they obviously use GPS and algorithm.

So by using signal strength, and gps fix you could gather approximately where the tower location would be, provided you have more than one fix which is not in the same location. Also like you mentioned a tower serving you from further out will disrupt the data.

And true on the LTE. Samsung S6 Edge.

 

[The_MAC]

True . . . . but reading on the website they obviously use GPS and algorithm.

So by using signal strength, and gps fix you could gather approximately where the tower location would be, provided you have more than one fix which is not in the same location. Also like you mentioned a tower serving you from further out will disrupt the data.

And true on the LTE. Samsung S6 Edge.

Sure. Although I can't figure out how the algorithm will calculate where the towers are, its quite different to the triangulation method of figuring out where the subscriber is, as you only have 1 unknown (the customer).

The little "e" before the cellID indicates LTE, it stand for "eNodeB", its an industry standard LTE naming convention..

 

[blowdart18]

Oh thanks for the info, learning new things everyday.

 

[FNfal]

http://opensignal.com/

 

[T-Man]

I mapped a large number of the towers is my area - GSM & 3G for all providers using Cellmapper.
Cellmapper gives you a good indication of where to look for the tower, but in the end of the day there is nothing better than to go and read the 'labeling' of a particular tower.

Having the location is obviously handy if you're putting up a directional antenna

 

[blowdart18]

At the end of the day also doing it for ****s and giggles. Doesn't hurt playing around and seeing the impact

 

[blowdart18]

Ok so some feedback time.

I have been driving around with this thing on pretty much every day since the first post, and interesting thing to point out is that almost 6 of the towers in the Annlin/Sinoville Area have an accuracy of probably 10 - 20 meters.