Cell tower location map. Megafon base station addresses
Published 04/22/2015 by John
Cellidfinder is a simple and convenient location search service base stations mobile communications GSM standard and plotting them on a map. The article provides detailed instructions to find the location of GSM base stations using this service.
What data is needed to localize the BS?
In order to find the coordinates of the base station sector, you need to know 4 parameters:
- MCC (Mobile Country Code) is a code that determines the country in which the mobile operator is located. For example, for Russia it is 250, the USA - 310, Hungary - 216, China - 460, Ukraine - 255, Belarus - 257.
- MNC (Mobile Network Code) is a code assigned to a mobile operator. Unique for each operator in a particular country. A detailed table of MCC and MNC codes for operators worldwide is available.
- LAC (Location Area Code) - local area code. In a nutshell, LAC is an association of a number of base stations that are served by one base station controller (BSC). This parameter can be presented in either decimal or hexadecimal format.
- CellID (CID) - “cell identifier”. The same sector of the base station. This parameter can also be presented in decimal and hexadecimal format.
Where can I get this data?
The data is taken from the netmonitor. Netmonitor is special application for mobile phones or other devices, which allows you to find out engineering parameters mobile network. There is a network great amount no monitors for various devices. Finding the right one is not a problem. In addition, many modern GPS trackers in conditions bad reception satellites can send to the owner not coordinates, but parameters of the base station (MCS, MNC, LAC, Cellid) to which they cling. Cellidfinder will help you quickly translate these parameters into the approximate location of the BS.
Where do the coordinates of the base station come from?
The search for coordinates of base stations is carried out in the Google and Yandex databases, which provide such an opportunity. It should be noted that as a result of the search we do not get the exact location of the tower, but an approximate one. This is the location where it was registered greatest number subscribers who transmitted information about their location to Google servers and Yandex. The most accurate location by LAC and CID is determined by using the averaging function, which calculates the coordinates of all sectors (CellID) of one base station, and then calculates the average value.
How to work with CellIDfinder?
In order to start working with the CellIdfinder base station location search service, you need to install any netmonitor on your smartphone. Here is one of the good options. We turn on the downloaded application and look at the necessary parameters.
IN in this case in the netmonitor window we saw:
MCC = 257 (Belarus)
MNC = 02 (MTS)
LAC = 16
CID = 2224
We enter these parameters into the search form on . Because LAC and CID can be issued by the netmonitor in both decimal and hexadecimal form; the search form has auto-complete for LAC and CID in the second form. Select “Google Data”, “Yandex Data” and, if high accuracy is needed, “Averaging”. Click the "Find BS" button.
As a result, we obtained the coordinates for this sector of the base station. Moreover, the coordinates in the Google and Yandex databases practically coincided, which means we can assume that the BS are built on the map quite accurately.
The issue of base stations has already been raised, but a clear definition has not been identified. I believe that these towers should be removed, because they do not serve any purpose. useful information, and when there are a large number of them (towers), it only litters the map.
akbars, please write a clear definition of what needs to be done with them. And it is advisable to include it in the rules.
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The issue of base stations has already been raised, but a clear definition has not been identified. I believe that these towers should be removed, because they do not carry any useful information, and if there are a large number of them (towers), it will only litter the map.
akbars, please write a clear definition of what needs to be done with them. And it is advisable to include it in the rules.
The issue of base stations has already been raised, but a clear definition has not been identified. I believe that these towers should be removed, because they do not carry any useful information, and if there are a large number of them (towers), it will only litter the map.
akbars, please write a clear definition of what needs to be done with them. And it is advisable to include it in the rules.
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The issue of base stations has already been raised, but a clear definition has not been identified. I believe that these towers should be removed, because they do not carry any useful information, and if there are a large number of them (towers), it will only litter the map.
akbars, please write a clear definition of what needs to be done with them. And it is advisable to include it in the rules.
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The issue of base stations has already been raised, but a clear definition has not been identified. I believe that these towers should be removed, because they do not carry any useful information, and if there are a large number of them (towers), it will only litter the map.
akbars, please write a clear definition of what needs to be done with them. And it is advisable to include it in the rules.
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When buying a SIM card from a particular telecom operator, we rarely think about looking at the reception card. We are accustomed to the fact that the phone picks up a signal almost everywhere. The same applies to the Beeline operator - its base stations are located everywhere. This is evidenced by the map that outlines the Beeline coverage area on the operator’s official website. Nevertheless, the connection is not everywhere and not always - we will tell you why this is so.
Features of the Beeline coverage map
In almost any locality we can find places where there is no coverage area of our favorite telecom operator - in our case it is Beeline. A poorly located building, poor apartment layout and rooms with thick reinforced concrete walls can cause a lack of communication. One should not lose sight of the peculiarities of radio wave propagation in different conditions. The result of all this is areas with a lack of communication. But the Beeline coverage map is unable to tell us about this.
The operator admits that in a given area there may be areas where the signal from base stations will not be received, or will be received with difficulty.
Information about Beeline's coverage area may be required in cases where we do not know whether a signal will be received at a particular point. Situations may be as follows:
- The subscriber is going on a business trip, and so that he can talk in his own way mobile phone, at a given point the Beeline signal must be caught;
- A man is going on a hike, and he wants to know whether there will be communication far from the city;
- We are about to buy a summer house - we need to check whether there will be mobile phone reception there.
There are thousands of such situations. And on the map of the Beeline coverage area you can find settlements in which there are no base stations. This means that there will be no connection to the network here, and you won’t be able to call anywhere. Beeline's coverage area in the Moscow region is quite wide - there is no doubt that there will be communication almost everywhere. We can say that the coverage here is almost continuous.
Let's try to move deeper into the Moscow region, looking at the map - we will find areas where there is no Beeline reception. It’s one thing when there is no reception somewhere in a wooded area, and it’s a completely different matter when there is no reception in any populated area (villages, small towns, hamlets).
The most interesting thing is when you arrive at your destination and are surprised to discover that the phone is still registered on the network. This may be due to inaccuracies in computer card Beeline's coverage area, as well as some features of radio wave propagation.
As practice shows, the network can be accessible even in places where there is no coverage area on the map - for example, in remote forest areas or in mountainous areas where a reflected signal can be caught.
By the way, sometimes this is not even enough to make a call - the reception symbols are displayed on the screen, but it is simply impossible to make a call or access the Internet.
Most often you encounter oddities in the coverage area in mountainous areas - here there are areas with unusual strong signal, settlements with complete absence Beeline coverage areas, as well as “spots” where the network seems to be caught, but does not show a stable connection.
You can view maps of Beeline's coverage area on the operator's official website. To do this, go to the “Offices and Coverage” section, select the required technology (2G, 3G or 4G), and then wait until the areas where there is a stable connection are displayed. note that this map may not reflect the actual reception situation, as it is generated by a computer and may not take into account the characteristics of radio wave propagation.
Internet coverage area from Beeline
This point is already more interesting, as it allows you to find out whether the Internet will work in a particular point in the Moscow region and Russia. As is the case with voice services, The Internet, even in the already widespread 3G format, will not be available everywhere. As far as was noted, Beeline has a stable coverage area only in populated areas. One has only to go for road sign with the name of the city/town/village crossed out, that’s when the problems begin.
If you want to see the 3G coverage area from Beeline, go to the official website and go to the “Offices and Coverage” section. Move the slider to the 3G position and wait until the map is shaded with areas with theoretical signal reception in the specified format. You may notice that it is slightly smaller than the 2G zone - and this is quite understandable, since second-generation networks appeared before third-generation networks.
The 4G coverage map from Beeline is drawn in the same section. To do this, you need to move the slider for displaying networks of a particular generation. You may notice that Beeline 4G coverage area is significantly narrower compared to other networks. For example, in Solnechnogorsk, Dmitrov or Kolomna there is a network, but in Tver for example it is missing. But it is present in distant Rybinsk.
The reason for the selectivity of Beeline’s coverage area in the 4G standard is not entirely clear, and you won’t be able to get an answer to this question from the support service (they themselves don’t know anything).
Beeline's LTE coverage area completely matches 4G coverage(this is, in fact, the same thing, because LTE is the fourth generation 4G network) - there is not even a corresponding switch on the card. But here you can display 4G+ coverage, this is high-speed Internet with a maximum speed of up to 300 Mbit/sec. In the Moscow region, it operates only within the central part of Moscow. In small populated areas 4G+ does not work.
Fixing problems with coverage area
It is unlikely that you will be able to force the operator to install new base stations in some village where several hundred people live. But if you live in a large populated area, and you notice that at some point there is no normal connection to Beeline, You can write an application to adjust the coverage area– sometimes this helps (the operator will reconfigure the antennas or take measurements with his equipment).
There are many ways to determine location, such as satellite navigation(GPS), wireless location WiFi networks and over networks cellular communications.
In this post, we tried to check how well the technology for determining location using cell towers in the city of Minsk works (provided that only open databases of GSM transmitter coordinates are used).
The principle of operation is that a cell phone (or cellular communication module) knows which base station transceiver it is served by, and having a database of coordinates of base station transmitters, you can approximately determine your location.
Now a little about what a transmitter is in the understanding of OpenCellID and how the OpenCellID database is populated. This database is filling up different ways, the simplest is to install an application on a smartphone that records the coordinates of the phone and the serving base station, and then sends all measurements to the server. The OpenCellID server calculates the approximate location of the base station based on large number measurements (see figure below). Thus, the coordinates of the wireless network are calculated automatically and are very approximate.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
Now let's move on to the question of how to use this database. There are two options: use the Cell ID to coordinates translation service provided by OpenCellID.org, or perform a local search. In our case local method preferable because we're going to be driving a 13km route and the web will be slow and inefficient. Accordingly, we need to download the database to the laptop. This can be done by downloading the cell_towers.csv.gz file from downloads.opencellid.org.
The database is a table in CSV format, described below:
- code of the country; - operator code; - area code; - transmitter identifier; - longitude of the transmitter; - latitude of the transmitter.
All cellular modules support following commands: AT+CREG, AT+COPS (serving base station), AT+CSQ (signal strength from the base station). Some modules allow you to recognize, in addition to the serving transmitter, also neighboring ones, i.e. monitor base stations using the AT^SMONC commands for Siemens and AT+CCINFO for Simcom. I had a SIMCom SIM5215E module at my disposal.
Accordingly, we used the AT+CCINFO command, its format is given below.
We are interested following parameters:
- indicator of the serving transmitter; - indicator of a nearby transmitter; - code of the country; - operator code; - area code; - transmitter identifier; - received signal power in dBm.
Monitoring is working - you can go.
The route ran in the western part of Minsk along the street. Matusevich, Pushkin Ave., st. Ponomarenko, st. Sharangovicha, st. Maxim Goretsky, st. Lobanka, st. Kuntsevshchina, st. Matusevich.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
The log was recorded at intervals of 1 second. Converting CellID to coordinates, it turned out that 6498 calls to the OpenCellID database were successful, and 3351 calls did not find matches in the database. Those. The hit rate for Minsk is approximately 66%.
The figure below shows all the transmitters that were found in the log and were in the database.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
The picture below shows all serving transmitters that were found in the log and were in the database. Those. a similar result can be obtained on any cellular module or phone.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
As you can see, at one point we were served by a transmitter located behind the traffic intersection at the intersection of the street. Pritytsky and MKAD. Most likely, this is a suburban base station serving subscribers at a distance of several kilometers, which leads to significant errors in determining location using Cell ID.
Since our SIMCom SIM5215E at each moment of time shows not only the serving transmitter, but also neighboring ones and the signal levels from them, we will try to calculate the coordinates of the device based on all the data available at a particular moment in time.
We will calculate the subscriber coordinates as a weighted average of the transmitter coordinates:
Latitude = Sum (w[n] * Latitude[n]) / Sum(w[n])
Longitude = Sum (w[n] * Longitude[n]) / Sum(w[n])
As is known from the theory of radio wave propagation, the attenuation of a radio signal in a vacuum is proportional to the square of the distance from the transmitter to the receiver. Those. When removed by a factor of 10 (for example, from 1 km to 10 km), the signal will become 100 times weaker, i.e. will decrease by 20 dB in power. Accordingly, the weight for each term is defined as:
w[n] = 10^(RSSI_in_dBm[n] / 20)
Here we assumed that the power of all transmitters is the same; this assumption is erroneous. But due to the lack of information about the power of the base station transmitter, one has to make deliberately rough assumptions.
As a result, we get a more detailed picture of locations.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
As a result, the route turned out to be well mapped out, with the exception of the ejection towards the interchange on the Moscow Ring Road, for the previously described reason. In addition, over time, the coordinate database will be filled, which should also increase the accuracy and availability of Cell ID location technology.
Thank you for your attention. Questions and comments are welcome.
Having decided to buy a SIM card of any mobile operator, we don’t even ask ourselves whether it will work in a particular region. We do not ask these kinds of questions because we are confident that the coverage area is everywhere. Beeline is also not immune to this.
The operator's cell towers are located in all regions of our large country. All of them are capable of transmitting a 4G signal. This type of network is new and much faster than its predecessors. But the company does not limit itself to this and is constantly expanding. This is done so that all subscribers of the cellular operator can always stay in touch.
Features of 4G from Beeline
To attract as many customers as possible, the operator began to actively upgrade its cell towers to 4G networks. This company was one of the last to begin updating its network to this type of communication. However, this gave huge advantages in terms of stable data transfer to maximum speed up to 100 Mb/s. Thanks to the installed Beeline LTE base stations, which allow operation at a frequency of only 900 MHz, it has taken the lead among competing companies.
IN currently the company is working on new connection 5G which will allow you to achieve data transfer speeds of up to 200-300 MB per second. The launch of this connection is planned for 2020. By this time, even the most remote corners will be equipped with base stations Russian Federation. If we compare the signal reception of the Beeline operator and any other operator indoors, it turns out that the company has a huge advantage in the frequency of signal reception and transmission, without any delays or interference.
Beeline operator network coverage area
The first city where the company launched a 4G network as an experiment was Moscow. Testing began in the central part of the city, gradually expanding beyond this zone and spreading throughout the entire territory. The fourth generation of the network can currently be enjoyed in more than eighteen regions of Russia. Which gives the company the right to take first place among cellular operators.
If we look at the example of such cities as Elista and Maykop, it becomes clear that this type The network covers 80% of the territory of these cities, previously it was only 10-15%. The use of the 4G LTE network provided by Beeline operates even in the Yuzhno-Sakhalin region, which is the most remote region of the Russian Federation.
The company carried out measurements itself high speed data transmission over most of Russia, during which it was found that the highest speed indicator on this moment is 70Mb/sec.These measurements are a direct basis for the development and achievement of great results in data transmission.
On the official website in open access A map of the Beeline coverage area is posted. To study it in detail and understand whether this type of connection exists in your region, just go to the “coverage and offices” section, where, by selecting one or another network option, you can see the signal coverage area.
If, when examining the coverage area, you notice LTE network Don’t be upset, it’s the same 4G connection, only in a more advanced and lightweight format. Beeline has an active 4G+ option that allows you to use data transfer at speeds of up to 150 Mb/s. Which is undoubtedly another undeniable advantage of other operators. However, like most Beeline cannot be called ideal.
What to do if the connection has shortcomings or is completely absent?
It happens that there is no coverage area in a certain place in a populated area. This is not the company's fault, but a large part depends on the geolocation of the cell tower, which may be caused by reception difficulties cellular signal or its complete absence.
What are the reasons for this?
This happens due to the strength of the reflected signal. Such a signal is capable of appearing in places that simply should not exist. For example, on a mountainside or in a separate part of a forest. Such phenomena are explained by radio wave activity and the characteristics of its propagation.
Now let's talk a little about the disadvantages. All innovations or improvements have their downsides, and 4G LTE communication also has it. Such a network consumes a lot a large number of energy. At present cell phones There are still not enough people capable of operating in this type of network, as evidenced by the presence of only voice data transmission. Beeline continues to be one of the leading operators, despite the problems with communication in small settlements in several regions.
How to influence the solution of problems with cellular communications?
It is unlikely that we will be able to exert any influence on the cellular operator to install additional stations or towers. But it is quite possible to influence the ability to correct communication problems by adjusting antennas or new equipment measurements. To do this, if there is no connection in some sparsely populated areas of the Russian Federation, although it should be there, you should make a written request to adjust and correct this situation.
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