cell ID to location?

[mango7]

Hi,

I am writing an application that uses the cell phone's location data. I have a T-Mobile voice plan, but no data plan. I am using a Nokia with which I can successfully obtain a CellID [location.gsm_location()]. However, I am unable to turn this into a specific location (gps coordinates or an address).

Has anyone been successful in retrieving coordinates with a similar setup (voice plan, no data plan) and could suggest some API that would do this for me? Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[Rafael T.]

Hi,

I am writing an application that uses the cell phone's location data. I have a T-Mobile voice plan, but no data plan. I am using a Nokia with which I can successfully obtain a CellID [location.gsm_location()]. However, I am unable to turn this into a specific location (gps coordinates or an address).

Has anyone been successful in retrieving coordinates with a similar setup (voice plan, no data plan) and could suggest some API that would do this for me? Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Hi mango7,

Well, I think you can do this. Please take a look at this article, it might help you.


BR,

Rafael.

[gaba88]

Hi mango7
The thing goes like this if you want to get the location then you have to use GPS to get the perfect lat/long. You cant map location perfectly using the cellid method.
For more details you can have a look at he MopyMaps example in the mobile python book.

Enjoy pythoning
Gaba88

[james1980]

Hi mango7,

Well, I think you can do this. Please take a look at this article, it might help you.


BR,

Rafael.

hi ,
The article explain only about getting cell id, mcc, mnc and lac. But using this data you cant get exact location. I think gaba88 is correct, you have to use gps to get exact lat-long.
Bye.

[szallah]

@mango7

i once made a script that gathers the lat/lon google-maps assigns to cell-towers. there are far from accurate, but correct within a radius of +/- 2 kilometers... the script also is in use in pynetmony (http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/fo...d.php?t=114522)...
i'll post the script when i'm back from work...

EDIT
here's the quick-and-dirty script. this one doesn't work with PyS60 since there's no urllib2 in PyS60. but it can be done using the the normal urllib and it'll give you a hint how it works...
anyhow, this just works if google has data for the cell-tower you're trying to lookup...

import urllib2

url = 'http://www.google.com/glm/mmap'
string1 = '000E00000000000000000000000000001B0000000000000000000000030000'
string2 = 'FFFFFFFF00000000'

def make_string(value):
    hex_s = hex(value)[2:]
    return hex_s.zfill(8)

def fetch_latlon(bytestring):
    global url
    user_agent = 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT)'
    headers = { 'User-Agent' : user_agent }
    req = urllib2.Request(url, bytestring, headers)
    resp = urllib2.urlopen(req)
    response = resp.read().encode('hex')
    return response

def convert_bytestring(response):
    lathex_s = response[14:22]
    lonhex_s = response[22:30]
    lat = float(int(lathex_s,16))/1000000
    lon = float(int(lonhex_s,16))/1000000
    return (lat,lon)

def main(cid,lac,mnc,mcc):
    global string1, string2
    string = string1+make_string(cid)+make_string(lac)+make_string(mnc)+make_string(mcc)+string2
    b_string = string.decode('hex')
    bytes = fetch_latlon(b_string)
    (a,b) = convert_bytestring(bytes)
    print a
    print b

CID = 20465
LAC = 495
MNC = 3
MCC = 262

main(CID,LAC,MNC,MCC)

[neil.young]

You'll find all you need to know here. http://foreverneilyoung.blogspot.com...here-am-i.html

I didn't had a trigger to port my C# sample to python, but I thought I could make it and embed the code into my LocateMe http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/fo...d.php?t=148748

What do you think?

[maclun123]

Hello,

I have found something that may be useful here:

http://blog.jebu.net/2008/07/google-...python-on-s60/

Works very good, ass long as your cell ID is in database.

I have tested it mainly in Denmark, where 90% of towers are accessible. In Poland and Germany it is much worse. I am wondering how it is in different countries. If anyone will be making some tests I will be very much interested in results. You can contact me at maclun@gmail.com.

Maciej

[miohtama]

Hello,

I have found something that may be useful here:

http://blog.jebu.net/2008/07/google-...python-on-s60/

Works very good, ass long as your cell ID is in database.

What are licensing terms for this data? Google Maps ToS has some limitations regarding its use - you must have it on a HTML page and so on...

Also Yahoo's Fire Eagle is probably offering cell tower database too.

[neil.young]

Simply you are not allowed to use it that way

[neil.young]

Hello,

I have found something that may be useful here:

http://blog.jebu.net/2008/07/google-...python-on-s60/

Works very good, ass long as your cell ID is in database.

I have tested it mainly in Denmark, where 90% of towers are accessible. In Poland and Germany it is much worse. I am wondering how it is in different countries. If anyone will be making some tests I will be very much interested in results. You can contact me at maclun@gmail.com.

Maciej

Yeah, this is using an older API version and has a lot of crappy parameters in the request. But basically it seems to be OK, although it doesn't recognize the builtin error reporting field and the HPE field... The latest API is discussed in my blog http://foreverneilyoung.blogspot.com...here-am-i.html). I'm currently rewrite it in Python.

In contrary to your claim the hit rate in Germany is extremely good. The problem: Google is (or at least was last time I used this API) faulty with its handling of UMTS towers. Because Germany is full of 3G towers, you are likely lost, if you ask them for geocodes for UMTS cells. But taken that error into account, you may come to a result. I have blogged in details on this issue, and as far as I can see, the python code doesn't take the UMTS problem into account....

Regards

[cassioli]

www.opencellid.org

[vonamann]

Hey, szallah, this script gives wrong coordinates if they are negative (e. g. try MCC=310, MNC=410, LAC=11946, CID=6559), must me something like this:

def convert_bytestring(response):
    lathex_s = response[14:22]
    lonhex_s = response[22:30]
    negative_threshold = 0x7fffffff
    lat = int(lathex_s,16)
    lon = int(lonhex_s,16)
    if lat > negative_threshold:
      lat = -(1 + negative_threshold - (lat & negative_threshold))
    if lon > negative_threshold:
      lon = -(1 + negative_threshold - (lon & negative_threshold))
    lat = float(lat)/1000000
    lon = float(lon)/1000000
    return (lat,lon)

@mango7

i once made a script that gathers the lat/lon google-maps assigns to cell-towers. there are far from accurate, but correct within a radius of +/- 2 kilometers... the script also is in use in pynetmony (http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/fo...d.php?t=114522)...
i'll post the script when i'm back from work...

EDIT
here's the quick-and-dirty script. this one doesn't work with PyS60 since there's no urllib2 in PyS60. but it can be done using the the normal urllib and it'll give you a hint how it works...
anyhow, this just works if google has data for the cell-tower you're trying to lookup...

import urllib2

url = 'http://www.google.com/glm/mmap'
string1 = '000E00000000000000000000000000001B0000000000000000000000030000'
string2 = 'FFFFFFFF00000000'

def make_string(value):
    hex_s = hex(value)[2:]
    return hex_s.zfill(8)

def fetch_latlon(bytestring):
    global url
    user_agent = 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT)'
    headers = { 'User-Agent' : user_agent }
    req = urllib2.Request(url, bytestring, headers)
    resp = urllib2.urlopen(req)
    response = resp.read().encode('hex')
    return response

def convert_bytestring(response):
    lathex_s = response[14:22]
    lonhex_s = response[22:30]
    lat = float(int(lathex_s,16))/1000000
    lon = float(int(lonhex_s,16))/1000000
    return (lat,lon)

def main(cid,lac,mnc,mcc):
    global string1, string2
    string = string1+make_string(cid)+make_string(lac)+make_string(mnc)+make_string(mcc)+string2
    b_string = string.decode('hex')
    bytes = fetch_latlon(b_string)
    (a,b) = convert_bytestring(bytes)
    print a
    print b

CID = 20465
LAC = 495
MNC = 3
MCC = 262

main(CID,LAC,MNC,MCC)

[Aarushi0311]

Hi...when i use the above code..I get the lat and long of other country i'e Germany..what changes do i need to do in the code so that it can display the current location's lat and long..??

Please do reply ASAP.

Regards

[neil.young]

You need to change the values for mnc, mcc, cid and lac. Those should reflect values of a cell tower near to you.

[Aarushi0311]

What values of mcc,mnc,cid and lac should be given to get the surrounding values of cell tower...???