How to get location based services without gps?

[strawhat89]

Hey guys, I am a final year engg student and I and 3 of my friends want to develop an application using J2ME as our final year project that helps me to get my location and using that I need to find the names of my contacts whose address is already saved in a database. I dont want to use gps. I've seen lot of information about the cellid retrieval and using that and the Open CellID site to get my location. But this i.e., the OpenCellID is not useful in India as there are no registered cell towers in India in the site.
So is there any way like maybe triangulation using which I can get my location? and also is this possible in the lower end phones without gps support if not which phones would support this application? I would be much obliged for any info that you can provide. Thanks

[grahamhughes]

There are lots of discussions on this topic, so use the forum search.

Your main problem is: most phones will not tell a Java application information like the cell ID.

As you say, even if you had that information, you need a database to map the cell ID into latitude and longitude.

Triangulation is possible when the phone is in range of several different towers, but it's really only possible for the network to do this, not the device (you need incredibly accurate timing to measure the differences in propagation delay).

In short, they put GPS hardware in phones because figuring out your location without it is really, really difficult.

Graham.

[strawhat89]

Thanks for the quick response. So is this project possible in a non-gps enabled phone or will I have to get a new expensive phone? I have checked the different discussions in the forum but I could find if the project is possible or not.

I've been thinking and I just had another idea. Is there any way to access the data that stores which area's cell tower I am getting the signal from?

What I mean is usually when the signal changes for one area to another area the change is shown by displaying a banner with the area's name displayed on it. So if there is any way to get that data then maybe I could match it with with the database and then get the contacts in that particular area. So is this possible?

Thanks for the help I really appreciate it.

[grahamhughes]

Again, the problem is getting the information you need.

What device(s) do you want to use?

Graham.

[strawhat89]

All I have access to right now is a 6600 and a 5130 XM and I dont suppose this project will work on either of them so I was hoping on buying an Nseries maybe
N71/91 or N79 or something like that

[grahamhughes]

No, you certainly won't get the information you want on a Series 40 device. I'd say that getting a device with GPS would be a good move! Or at least, one with Location API support.

Getting the information you want is difficult, and what you can get varies from device to device. There are lots of discussions about this, which you might want to read. You'll get some wisdom from developers with more experience in location-enabling application than I have.

Try this URL:

http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/search.php?do=process&childforums=1&forumchoice[]=3&query=cellid+lac

(Sorry, can't make it a link, as the "[]" screws up the system.) Or go to the forum search, put "cellid lac" (without quotes) as the key words, and select "mobile java" (under development platforms) in the "search in forums" box. I find 15 conversations, some of which will be worth reading.

Hope that helps.

Graham.

[strawhat89]

Thanks a lot I'll have to think how to go about it as a GPS supporting device will be bit too much for my pocket but maybe I'll have get one afterall. I will check those coversations and the link.
Thanks again for your help.

[sunil_bhambani123]

Hi,

Is it necessary for you to go J2ME only? If you can develop with Symbian C++ then you coudl develop the same application for Nokia 6600 also.

Symbian C++ will give you cellid, lac, mnc and mcc information for 6600.