Hey you! Your first time here? Introduce yourself :)

[arashm]

Hi! My name is Arash, and I’m trying to make sense of the Differential files. Typically, I would wait a day before asking this question and performing my own test. However, in this case, I decided to ask sooner. I downloaded the latest cell_towers.csv.gz file, and when I used Python Pandas to determine what had changed compared to yesterday’s Differential file, I did not see any differences. It makes sense because I expect that yesterday’s Differential file is already in today’s file (1GB file). So my question is, what could change in a daily file? What should I take into account when trying to find differences in data like this?

Suppose the row of data I’m interested in a Differential file is:

radio,mcc,net,area,cell,unit,lon,lat,range,samples,changeable,created,updated,averageSignal
GSM,208,1,22785,695,0,0.312797,49.317361,23214,112,1,1308983842,1681652173,0

To pinpoint this particular row of data in the 1GB file, I had to search using the following properties:

radio = GSM
mcc = 208
net = 1
area = 22785
cell = 695

Is this the proper way to determine what changed in a large file compared to the rows of data found in the Differential files?

[piramida1985]

Hello, I’m Alexander. I liked your platform of practical advice, very informative. I am interested in this area. I would like to gain more knowledge. With the execution of your policy without insults and flood))) Regards

[Manuel_Espinoza]

Hi. My name is Manuel Espinoza and I am from Mexico, For several years I was Trimble Mapping & GIS Certified Trainer and at this time I am working on a telecomunications project.

[larrys66diner]

Hi, I am Larry from Hannibal, Missouri.

I joined because, in more recent days, I have developed a deep fascination with cell towers and how they function. Not sure where this recent interest came from, but it’s turned more into an obsession it seems. I’ve been already learning much regarding MCCs and MNCs etc; still trying to figure out or learn where LACs are derived from, as well as learn more about the frequencies and bands etc. I think it’s pretty interesting how all this technology works, and I consider myself a pretty Techie individual (although not quite as savvy as Tim McGee on CBS’ NCIS, but would certainly like to be! ). Perhaps, if I spend enough time here, I may get more Techie like McGee. LOL

It seems like I’m in for some fascinating reads, so I guess I’ll sit back and enjoy the material.

[ThePrince]

Hi.

I am interested in detecting IMSI-Catchers.

So, I am here to aquire an OpenCellID API key, first of all.

[matt]

Hi,

I’m a software developer working in the cellular IoT space. My name is Matt. I’ve struck a deal with a reputable book publisher to write the first book on cellular connectivity in the IoT space. It’s a practical guide to the many challenges of establishing and maintaining cellular connectivity, especially for mobile systems moving in and between regions of poor connectivity. The book should be released in late 2024.

My company produces and sells SpotMyBus (see spotmybus.com), a system for tracking and managing fleets of school buses. Our customers are school districts and we serve districts in many states.

We designed and manufacture our own tracking device. It runs Linux (Ubuntu 20.04), and uses a hybrid keypad/text-to-speech user interface. When placed in “debug” mode, it calls out signal strength, MNO, and distance traveled since previous report every 10 seconds, while also calling out connections, disconnections, and connection progress (while trying to connect). It logs everything it speaks, and a whole lot more.

We also design and manufacture our own cellular modems. After designing a modem around a ublox module (SARA R410) that is unstable and unreliable, and getting absolutely no technical support (after having purchased a reel of modules) we threw in the towel on ublox and switched Quectel. We developed modems around their BG95/BG96/EG91 family of modules and have found their modules and support to be outstanding.

I have, for some time, wanted to be able to additionally report distance to connected cell tower. Theoretically, if I know the signal strength at Point A and the signal strength at Point B (and both points were registered on the same tower), and the distance between Point A and Point B, and the relationship between distance to tower and signal strength then I can calculate the distance from each of the points to the tower–assuming the tower and Point A and Point B are all points on a single line.

In practice, signal strength measurements frequently vary by 3 dBm (or more) from one reading to the next even when a device is stationary, so as a practical matter I that approach is not useful (I think).

Recently, I started poking around the Internet looking for exactly the kind of data provided by the OpenCellId project.

I downloaded the data for the US, massaged it a bit to discard fields I don’t need, reduce the records to 17 (binary) bytes per cell, and organize the data for quick disk-based lookups. The file is 85mb and fits on my tracker, so now it can do look-ups on-the-fly and call out distance-to-tower too (every 10 seconds).

I have a couple of questions:

1. after reading various questions and comments regarding the “Range” values in the data, am I correct to understand that a Range of, say, 1000 means there is a 98% probability the actual cell tower location is inside a circle, centered on the estimated lat/lon, with a radius of 1000 meters?

Assuming–perhaps incorrectly–the answer to (1) is true:

2. for many cells (~3 million), the Range values are “pretty small,” at 1000m, but for many the Range values are 10km or more. If the calculated distance from the tracker to the estimated cell location, is 1500 meters and the Range is 5000 meters, then all I really know is the tower is 0 - 6500 meters a way, and there is nothing useful to report.
   Please note: I am not complaining. Rather, I am trying to understand the realities of using OpenCellId data, and thinking through approaches to improve Range values in the database.

Contributing Data

My trackers are on school buses. Half my customers are rural. It’s rural areas, I expect, where your data is most sparse and least precise. School buses go everywhere. Currently, my trackers log cell info every 10 seconds, but that is easily varied. My cellular modems use multi-SIMs which get access to ATT, T-Mobile and Verizon, so a single tracker can, theoretically, gather cell info for all three MNOs.

My trackers send location packets every 30 seconds which include some signal strength information. I am able to squeeze the packets into 18 bytes (payload) and use UDP to reduce packet overhead. The EG91 module has access to:

MCC
MNC
Radio Technology
TAC
Cell ID
RSSI
RSRP
RSRQ
SINR
srxlev (RX level value for Base Station)
Band
Bandwidth

I cannot send all of that data with each location packet, as it would greatly increase the packet size, but I could accumulate data on each tracker, analyze it periodically, and transfer a summary to one of our servers. The server could move the data to OpenCellId. For example, during a month, a tracker might collect many hundreds of samples for each cell it passes through. It could then perform the same sort of analysis OpenCellID performs on such data, and share the result for each cell, thereby reducing the the volume of data transferred by more than 99%.

I would be happy to discuss this matter if you folks are interested.

Regards,

Matt
1.757.277.4330
[email protected]

[Aeon_Phlo]

I am a *

• who has had the blessings of many mentors as well as the time in a private existence to spend thousands of hours researching the very depths catacombs and archives that provided a great opportunity to grow wisdom and live without fear. I test and develop apps that are integral and do what they say without hidden permissions or backdoor associations breach privacy or agreement fields.
  I believe if it is to be it is up to me. I cannot wait on others to make things better i must push and put in my efforts in order to be successful and satisfied.
  Today i have a private association called living eath solutions and we teach the truth about self sufficiency and self sustainability. So those generations that follow will get to breathe easy and not be cleaning up the forebears mistakes or lack of will public

sheep

herd mentalities. I am to leave a legacy of ease and grace where freedom/peace is not the absence war and oppression.
Ty for the welcome.

●■●○•€£《WeR1%trů &hųmãņ》●■●○•€£
From my side to your side souls reside/|
“I DO NOT CONSENT”: NOTICE TO PRINCIPAL IS NOTICE TO AGENT NOTICE TO AGENT IS NOTICE TO PRINCIPAL!

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[Aeon_Phlo]

I would be open to sharing what i am working on

[Tammy]

Hello all i am new to the community forum and just getting. Started with everything. Hope to plug in a project number soon as soon as i figure out where to do that . Thanks

[Spider-Man]

Hey,

My names Matt, i work in powered access and am building a tool to help me plan deliveries and collections of equipment to masts in the UK. Hoping to utilise your data to make my job easier

Glad to be here =]

[Steve_Kane]

Hello everyone my name.is Steve. I used to build radio, tv towers and cell towers. I was told about this site by a friend of mine. I believe my phone is hacked and he said I might find the answers I need here. I tried dialing some codes for android but when I call it I get a message saying we cannot make this call redial or contact Verizon. Any ideas?

[onesimkim2018]

hello. My name is Neo.
I would like to know information about cell towers in different countries and their radii.
Previously, the cell_towers.csv.gz file size seemed to be around 5G, but is there a reason why the size was reduced to 103M?

[Shakeel.cn]

Hope you are all doing well. I am graduate student at Henan Agricultual University in College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, China. For my PhD research I need to get the data of Cell site in Pakistan along with their coverage. can you help me in getting this data in Excel or KMZ fromats. I do not know much about APIs, and how it works.
so please help me in this regard.

[sdted2010]

Thank you! And greetings from La Mesa California. Got nothing but enthusiasm here and I’m eager to get my training wheels off here, because what’s right is right and I want to be on the right side of what’s right cuz there’s people out there who don’t know the difference between right and wrong cuz they don’t exactly respect other boundaries and stay in their lane, you know? You know, people who need to get some business of their own and don’t play by the rules…I think that that’s what’s bringing us together. Got nothing but respect for this site & the whole group, all advice and consructive criticism will be duly noted and appreciated. Cheers!

[Kropper]

Steve Kropper, Boston, Mass, USA based.

I managed most of the US LTE Public Safety Band 14 deployments in the US for five years to 2016 (Super & Rose Bowls, NY Marathon, Indy Speedway, Republican National Convention, bottom of the Grand Canyon and US:Canada border trials).

Now I’m the industry representative to New Hampshire’s SIEC which manages radio spectrum (mostly LMR) for police, fire, EMS.
Previously I held lease options on 12,000 US cell and broadcast towers from Verizon, US Cell, AMT and CCI.
My current interest is building a national (US) census of rooftop and on-building cell sites.

[Christopher]

Hi, Christopher here
It is a very interesting site - I am interested to learn about map data / how to understand what the letters on the cell tower maps mean. I do not yet understand the maps. For example, I see on the map many ‘orange coloured marks with a U letter’

does that mean there is a cell tower at that location? As I do not physically see a tower at that location.
I would be grateful for any pointers on where I can learn about how to read what the letters and symbols on the maps mean.
Thank you and regards!

[mwfong]

I recently downloaded database records for MCC 310 and 311. However, for all records, the PCI field for LTE is either 0 or -1 and the averageSignal is 0. Is this expected?

(BTW, how do I add a new topic to the “Technical Issues” category? — I can’t find a “New Topic” button.)

Thanks!

[twoflower]

1. In South Korea(or Republic Of Korea)'s Hobbyists(Severals, Tech is several hobby)
2. in F-droid’s Network Survey - not installed for wall of Galaxy, using Google Play Story
3. Search and Data Collated for My Near LTE/5G Transmitters.

Well, in my Transmitter is reported, but i’ll reported untiil using iOS. in iOS, I’ll find to Report to this.

[Fafa]

Hello everyone! Super nice to be part of this community

Im trying to locate all off-grid telco/cell towers in Europe. Preference to start in the Nordics. Can someone help me out with this project? Where would you look for this info first?

Thanks!
Faf

[Santiago_Janon]

I recently downloaded the database and would need to know if there is any way to distinguish between the different types of boosted 4G antennas, as can be seen in the following image:

I understand that you can find out by looking at the maximum upload speed, but the database doesn’t mention that information. Do you have any idea if there’s an alternative or if you can deduce the antenna type?