[How to] Download cells database CSV

[How to]
#1
  1. Sign up for an account at https://OpenCelliD.org
  2. Get your API Access Token from the dashboard. You’ll find this when you click ‘Show Token’ under ‘API Access Tokens’ tab on the left.
  3. Visit the downloads page and input the API Access Token
  4. Click ‘Show Files’ button
  5. Scroll down and you’ll see the option to download the worldwide dataset and Country Specific Exports.

Edit: If you’re getting a 'RATE_LIMTIED" error:

We allow only 2 downloads per account per day to prevent abuse. If you see this error, you’ll only be able to try again tomorrow.

Please use a proper download manager/ browser.

1 Like
Creating an Access Token
#2

When I try to download this word comes out to me what does it mean I am trying to take advantage of the program in locating the phones

#3

Are you getting a 'RATE_LIMTIED" error?

We allow only 2 downloads per account per day to prevent abuse. Please use a proper download manager if your browser is not able to download it properly.

#4

Hello,
I’m trying to use the database for some research and I need some help with two issues:

  1. The creation date of many cells is the same. Is there a way to get the actual first time the cell was created in the database?
  2. Which is the unique identifier for a cell in order to group them and do not have multiple entries for the same cell.

Thanks!
Genaro

#5

Hey Genaro,

  1. We don’t store the date where the cell tower was first seen. We do, however store the date of the most recent viewing of the cell.
  2. The unique id for a cell is a combination of MCC-MNC-LAC-CID and not date. There will be only unique combinations of MCC-MNC-LAC-CID in the cell csv
#6

Sagar,
Thank you for your reply.
Is there anyway to get around this issue on the lack of date for the first creation of a record? Maybe you keep historical dumps of the database? I’m trying to find out how quickly technologies are deployed and your database could be really helpful!
Thanks.

#7

Genaro, we simply don’t keep a record. I can ask my team to look into that if the community is interested.

#8

Is there a database of the Wifi BSIDs too?

#9

Opencellid collects only cell tower information at the moment. We’re planning to add WiFi in the near future. :slight_smile:

#10

Hi, I am working on locating cell tower locations using measurements collected at end-devices. Previously I was able to download the measurements dataset but in the updated site, i see no such datasets. Can you please tell how we can get the measurements data from opencellid?

#11

I am getting invalid token error. How do I get a token after signing in? And can I filter the CSV to get country specific data?

#12

Hi I am also getting invalid token error. Any help?

#13

@Siddhartha_Bagchi @mleh The download link on the site seems to be using the wrong token. You can get your real token from the API page (pk.1234.....) and put it in the url and it will work.

https://download.unwiredlabs.com/ocid/downloads?token=YOUR_REAL_TOKEN&file=cell_towers.csv.gz

1 Like
#14

Good information thanks for sharing
vmware

#15

Hi Sagar, I just wanted to follow up with the request someone asked earlier about the first creation of a record. Is there a historical dumps of the dataset? Thank you.

#16

Is there any way to download the database by an API? in the way, I give a request to the API, with API access token and it download it?

Thanks!

#17

I can i get the fullbdatebase of the cell tower full names and and address

#18

All this seems out of date and a bit confusingly wrong. For example, the post mentions going to https://opencellid.org/downloads, but that shows no links unless you enter an API token. Elsewhere, there’s mention of going to a special link “https://opencellid.org/downloads.php?token=world”, which shows the daily-generated cell towers CSV as well as differential files, however attempting to click that link results in an “invalid token” error.

The only currently successful method is the one explained in “Option 2”, though NB that the “Dashboard” link also incorrectly points to the https://unwiredlabs.com/dashboard?ref=opencellid page.

I found that to download any of the public files I had to make an account at OpenCellID.org, log in, go to the API Access Tokens page, reveal the API token, paste that into the Downloads page, and then I was able to download the cell_towers.csv file.

The OpenCellID wiki page at https://wiki.opencellid.org/wiki/FAQ#How_to_extract_all_cells_of_one_country_from_the_cell_towers.csv_file.3F is useful, but currently has outdated links and the CSVEd.exe file is not reachable from the URL listed. The wiki’s set to read-only so I was unable to update the page, however the current URL for the latest version of CSVEd appears to be at the author’s current site URL (or mirrored elsewhere online), https://home.hccnet.nl/s.j.francke/csved/csvedsetup.exe .

#19

Hi Chris,

You’re absolutely right. We haven’t updated this post in a while and I see how confusingly wrong that is. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. I’ve just updated this post and I will update the text over at OpenCellID wiki page.