Which app do you use to scan/debug GSM/CDMA cellular tower s

[Stijn De Jong]

Simple question:

Q: Which app do you use on iOS or Android to figure out all the cellular
towers and signal strengths of the cellular signal (CDMA or GSM) in your
area?

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

On Android, I am currently testing these GSM/CDMA signal strength apps,
where you can see my actual screenshot results in the photos below.

01 Network Cell Info Lite, version 3.30:
http://i.cubeupload.com/HoKTav.jpg
http://wilysis.com/networkcellinfo
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilysis.cellinfolite

02 Network Signal Info, version 3.63.01:
http://i.cubeupload.com/2zK8Ys.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.telnet

03 GSM Signal Monitoring, version 4.02:
http://i.cubeupload.com/V9O0Gg.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.signalmonitoring.gsmsignalmonitoring

04 Netmonitor, version 1.2.15:
http://i.cubeupload.com/TfDJaS.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.parizene.netmonitor

05 CellID Info:, version 1.2.2:
http://i.cubeupload.com/X3gsfb.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.its_here.cellidinfo

06 RF Toolbox (Cell Monitor), version 2.26:
http://i.cubeupload.com/y2YfEV.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.btapps.rftoolbox

07 WiGle WiFi Wardriving (which also reports cellular towers):
http://i.cubeupload.com/ZPva3O.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.wigle.wigleandroid

08. OpenSignal, version 5.10:
http://i.cubeupload.com/BwfSFa.jpg
https://opensignal.com/app/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.staircase3.opensignal
etc.

On iOs, I looked for similar apps, and found this:

01 OpenSignal, version 4.0.5 (but it doesn't seem to report the nearby
tower and signal strength):
http://i.cubeupload.com/rmPsVg.jpg
https://itunes.apple.com/app/opensignal/id598298030

The one bad thing is that all these apps only show one cellular tower, even
though I know I have *two* microtowers inside my house, so, I think I need
to find a better app which will show *all* the cellular towers it sees.

To that end, I ask this scientific debugging question:

Q: Which app do you use on iOS or Android to figure out all the cellular
towers and signal strengths of the cellular signal (CDMA or GSM) in your
area?

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

 

[pfjw@aol.com]

The Troll is back!

Please don't feed the troll!

 

[Whiskers]

On 2017-02-16, Stijn De Jong <stijndekoning@nlnet.nl> wrote:

Simple question:

Q: Which app do you use on iOS or Android to figure out all the cellular
towers and signal strengths of the cellular signal (CDMA or GSM) in your
area?

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

[...]

The one bad thing is that all these apps only show one cellular tower, even
though I know I have *two* microtowers inside my house, so, I think I need
to find a better app which will show *all* the cellular towers it sees.

To that end, I ask this scientific debugging question:

Q: Which app do you use on iOS or Android to figure out all the cellular
towers and signal strengths of the cellular signal (CDMA or GSM) in your
area?

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

I use OpenSignal on my Android, in the UK. It currently shows '100
nearby' cell towers on the first page (where your screenshot shows '0
nearby') and they are shown as points on the map within a mile or two of
where I am (in a large busy city). But I'm pretty sure that comes from
the OpenSignal server not from the phone's own hardware. Likewise the
information it claims to have about nearby WiFi hot spots. The phone
and Google work out where you are and OpenSignal send you the data they
have for that area.

So if OpenSignal have few users in your area they'll have little or
nothing to tell you about.

Your phone will be able to tell OpenSignal about the cell tower it is
currently connected to, and OpenSignal can add that to their database.
If the operator of that cell tower has made its location public,
OpenSignal will even be able to place it accurately on the map -
otherwise they'll have to estimate its position from the signal
information their users provide.

I don't know the other apps you mention.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 09:27:18 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I use the Pro version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.telnet2
Mostly, I just need a fast responding analog signal strength indicator
for aligning antennas and testing nanocellular base stations.

Hi Jeff,

You use my number 2 app, which validates that the app is pretty decent.

I know you know your stuff so I think it's a validation that I put those
apps in the order that I liked them, after testing them for only a few
minutes each (and after removing about as many that failed upon initial
inspection).

Q: Which app do you use on iOS or Android to figure out all the cellular
towers and signal strengths of the cellular signal (CDMA or GSM) in your
area?

I've only tested a few such apps, but I don't recall seeing any that
did that.

Bummer.
The app that I *think* will give me nearby towers is WiGLE (which, I think
I recall giving me more than one cellular tower, but maybe I'm wrong).

As it is, I can only get 1 tower out of each app, and that tower is always
the same company as my supplier.

So, what I *want*, I can't find, which is an app that scans for all towers,
and simply reports the unique id and signal strength of those towers (which
is how WiFi apps work).

Why can't a cellular app work like a wifi app works (e.g., InSSIDer or
Fritz! Wlan, or WiFi Analyzer, etc.)?

What the apps do is query the cell phone part of the
smartphone for cellular status information. I don't believe that apps
cannot control the cell phone and have it scan the neighborhood for
other cell sites. However, I'm not a programmer and might have this
wrong.

WiFi apps seem to be able to scan for access points that they don't
themselves connect to, but the protocols are different.

So far, I have to agree with what you're saying, which is that I'm limited
on Android by the fact that I can only "see" the signal strength and unique
ID of a single tower at a time.

That's a bummer because I'm trying to debug why I'm not connecting to the
two micro towers I have inside my house for T-Mobile (one is a cellular
repeater while the other is connected to my router).

This app looks like it might do what you want:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.parizene.netmonitor
See the "Limitations" section. It seems that if the cell phone
section doesn't display neighboring cells, then the app also can't
display them. I don't have time right now to try it.

Thanks for that suggestion since I only tested each cellular network
monitor for a few minutes yesterday.

Your suggestion was my #4 choice in the original post:
04 Netmonitor, version 1.2.15:
http://i.cubeupload.com/TfDJaS.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.parizene.netmonitor

Looking more closely at that app, I see there are four icons at the bottom,
where clicking on the "pencil and paper" icon shows a page full of
something.

That something is about a score of towers, with color codes of yellow and
red (and presumably green) with a time on the right and a description of
their location.

Here is one such line:

(green round dot) 40483 45813 2304 (yellow satellite icon)
California, USA, San Jose, CA 95121, 1656 Prime Place

I have to run out the door, so I'm not at all sure what this "pen and
pencil" page is trying to tell me, but I'll spend some more time on this
one app to see if it can show me *all* the towers it can see, and what
their signal strength is.

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

Nope. Just one tower.

I think you found the app (NetMonitor) that shows "something" about more
towers; so I will dig further into what it is trying to tell me.

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 15:36:42 +0000, Whiskers wrote:

I use OpenSignal on my Android, in the UK. It currently shows '100
nearby' cell towers on the first page (where your screenshot shows '0
nearby') and they are shown as points on the map within a mile or two of
where I am (in a large busy city). But I'm pretty sure that comes from
the OpenSignal server not from the phone's own hardware. Likewise the
information it claims to have about nearby WiFi hot spots. The phone
and Google work out where you are and OpenSignal send you the data they
have for that area.

So if OpenSignal have few users in your area they'll have little or
nothing to tell you about.

Your phone will be able to tell OpenSignal about the cell tower it is
currently connected to, and OpenSignal can add that to their database.
If the operator of that cell tower has made its location public,
OpenSignal will even be able to place it accurately on the map -
otherwise they'll have to estimate its position from the signal
information their users provide.

I don't know the other apps you mention.

Thanks for that information, as I have only been using these apps for one
day, so, I have only formed an initial impression out of the apps.

My selection process was simple:
1. I googled and read articles for the best iOS/Android cellular scanners.
2. I downloaded all the viable suggestions (about a score of apps)
3. I deleted, on sight, the obnoxious ones (I have an eye for that)
4. I then tested what was left and ordered them in best to worst (so far)

At that point, I noticed that all the apps had only a single tower listed,
so, that's when I asked you guys for assistance and expertise.

Jeff Liebermann confirms that most (if not all) only show one tower, which
is unfortunately because I'm trying to debug my house where I have 3 towers
at the bare minimum, to choose from (two of which are inside the house, one
of which is brand new).

However, Jeff found that my number 4 choice, NetMonitor, does list a page
of towers, so, I'm gonna explore that further.

I put OpenSignal *last* on my list, because it didn't seem to be all that
functional (it was actually completely non functional on the iPad, which
has a SIM card and a T-Mobile cellular data plan but not a voice plan, so
that might be the reason).

The one nice thing about OpenSignal is that it *points* to the connecting
tower, which is interesting in my case because my lookup of the tower shows
it to be in a different direction than which is pointed to by OpenSignal.

The rest of the OpenSignal information was, as you noted, all from a
database on the net, which isn't what I'm after here since I'm trying to
find my own cellular towers which are inside my own house, so they're not
likely to be on any OpenSignal database.

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 11:54:17 -0500, Zaidy036 wrote:

> Works on iPhone also

In my first post I placed OpenSignal last on the list of Android apps
simply because OpenSignal mostly seemed to be a lookup to Internet
databases, which isn't what I'm after.

I'm seeking a real-time scanner, and particularly I'm trying to see how my
two cellular micro towers are doing inside my house compared to the
cellular signals from outside (from towers that are a few miles away).

Since I'm out in the boonies, sort of where Jeff Liebermann lives, the
towers are few and far between and we know where they are (for the most
part).

The one potentially nice thing that OpenSignal provided on Android was a
compass-like pointer toward the tower it's connected to; however, that
pointer doesn't seem even remotely aligned with where I know that tower to
be, so, I'm not sure if that compass-like pointer is fluff or if there is a
major reflection of radio waves going on off of someone's solar panel array
or expansive windows overlooking the valley below.

I do know that the seemingly errant OpenSignal pointer is consistent, so,
it pointed in (what seems like) the wrong direction yesterday, and it's
pointing in the same direction today.

On the iPad, OpenSignal fared miserably, but that might be solely due to
the fact that the iPad has T-Mobile for cellular data only. The iPad does
not have a voice service on the SIM card. So maybe these apps only work
with phones and not with tablets?

 

[Zaidy036]

On 2/16/2017 10:36 AM, Whiskers wrote:

On 2017-02-16, Stijn De Jong <stijndekoning@nlnet.nl> wrote:
Simple question:

Q: Which app do you use on iOS or Android to figure out all the cellular
towers and signal strengths of the cellular signal (CDMA or GSM) in your
area?

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

[...]

The one bad thing is that all these apps only show one cellular tower, even
though I know I have *two* microtowers inside my house, so, I think I need
to find a better app which will show *all* the cellular towers it sees.

To that end, I ask this scientific debugging question:

Q: Which app do you use on iOS or Android to figure out all the cellular
towers and signal strengths of the cellular signal (CDMA or GSM) in your
area?

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

I use OpenSignal on my Android, in the UK. It currently shows '100
nearby' cell towers on the first page (where your screenshot shows '0
nearby') and they are shown as points on the map within a mile or two of
where I am (in a large busy city). But I'm pretty sure that comes from
the OpenSignal server not from the phone's own hardware. Likewise the
information it claims to have about nearby WiFi hot spots. The phone
and Google work out where you are and OpenSignal send you the data they
have for that area.

So if OpenSignal have few users in your area they'll have little or
nothing to tell you about.

Your phone will be able to tell OpenSignal about the cell tower it is
currently connected to, and OpenSignal can add that to their database.
If the operator of that cell tower has made its location public,
OpenSignal will even be able to place it accurately on the map -
otherwise they'll have to estimate its position from the signal
information their users provide.

I don't know the other apps you mention.

Works on iPhone also

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 01:52:24 +0000 (UTC), Stijn De Jong
<stijndekoning@nlnet.nl> wrote:

02 Network Signal Info, version 3.63.01:
http://i.cubeupload.com/2zK8Ys.jpg
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.telnet

I use the Pro version:
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.telnet2>
Mostly, I just need a fast responding analog signal strength indicator
for aligning antennas and testing nanocellular base stations.

Q: Which app do you use on iOS or Android to figure out all the cellular
towers and signal strengths of the cellular signal (CDMA or GSM) in your
area?

I've only tested a few such apps, but I don't recall seeing any that
did that. What the apps do is query the cell phone part of the
smartphone for cellular status information. I don't believe that apps
cannot control the cell phone and have it scan the neighborhood for
other cell sites. However, I'm not a programmer and might have this
wrong.

This app looks like it might do what you want:
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.parizene.netmonitor>
See the "Limitations" section. It seems that if the cell phone
section doesn't display neighboring cells, then the app also can't
display them. I don't have time right now to try it.

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

Nope. Just one tower.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 20:44:09 +0000 (UTC), Stijn De Jong wrote:

> You use my number 2 app, which validates that the app is pretty decent.

BTW, Jeff ... the main reason your number one cellular-scanning app
selection wasn't my number one choice was that Network Signal Info has an
obnoxious "Parthian Shot" full-screen ad, which has to be x'd out in order
to truly quit out of the app.

Since you have the Pro version of that Network Signal Info app, you
probably don't see that Parthian Shot (some call it a "parting shot").

Without that Parthian Shot ad, it would have been my number one selection,
so, others reading this thread will know that it's a very functional app,
even with the obnoxious parting shot ad.

I liked the way they did the map feature of the Network Signal Info app
because tapping on a tower on the Google Map gave the cell id easier than
did most of the other apps which had similar Internet-based location-lookup
maps.

http://i.cubeupload.com/uHE3lA.jpg

The only problem is that I'm not sure how accurate those maps are since I
found multiple towers in different locations with the same supposedly
unique cell id.

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 22:35:35 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

I can mention one app that apparently finds all towers in the vicinity,
but the only info it says about them is an identifier code.

It is "MyProfiles". The goal of the app is to adjust phone settings
according to rules. A rule can trigger on a variety of things, and one
of them is location. The location can be done by GPS, but the app can
instead do it based on which towers it can detect. You can tell it to
trigger "home" if it sees the five towers near home.

This is not the tool you need, but proves that other towers can be
found. The app lists all towers found, and timestamps them. Apparently
only one is active, but somehow it displays how many are within range,
and in another window lists them.

Thanks for the suggestion of MyProfiles.
There seems to be one from "Llab01 Inc."
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fancy01.myprofiles.lite

It certainly asks for a *lot* of permissions upon installing
(luckily, each one can be turned off individually)
- Device & app history
- Cellular data settings
- Identity
- Calendar
- Contacts
- Location
- SMS
- Phone
- Photos/Media/Files
- Wifi Connection information
- Bluetooth connection information
- Device ID & call information

But after using it for an hour, I can see that it's a powerful tool that
can "do stuff" (I'm not sure what yet) depending on what towers it is near.

I'll play with it a bit more, because it seems overall like a powerful
autoamtic doer of things. However, it's not a scanner, at least not only a
scanner.

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 14:14:49 -0800, Savageduck wrote:

I have OpenSignal on my iPhone and it located two Verizon towers in
the vicinity of my home out at Lake Nacimiento. It also provides usage
and signal data. I manages to do all I need of it.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1295663/Demo/File%20Feb%2016%2C%2014%2010%2045.png
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opensignal-speed-test-3g-4g/id598298030?mt=8

I think, as Jeff Liebermann noted, that the apps only query the phone to
figure out what signal strengths and tower iD information the phone has.

So that seems to be why all the apps can only see one tower at a time, and,
that one tower is only the tower of the current cellular provider.

If I popped in an AT&T SIM card, then I'd see the one AT&T tower I'm
connected to. I don't know if a phone can connect to two towers at once
though.

Can it?

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Fri, 17 Feb 2017 01:25:36 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

No, it certainly is not a scanner, but it uses scanning to do its own
stuff. I think the phone tries to connect to each tower, till it finds
the most appropriate one, and this tool records the activity to find the
approximate location with the minimal battery usage.

I think you're right that the suggested app is a very nice app as it has
been running for a few hours now, where the list of 8-digit and 14-digit
"cell tower IDs" is growing, even though I have been in the same location
all this time.

> I just meant it as a proof that scanning all towers is possible.

I thank you for bringing up that app, as it does seem to locate more towers
than most of the other apps do.

The app that Jeff Liebermann suggested, Netmonitor, also seems to list a
ton of cell towers by number.

So, those two apps seem to do "something" different than the rest of the
apps seem to do, as the

I use it to turn off automatically the WiFi when I get out of home, or
when it detects the car bluetooth. Previously I also used it to
temporarily disable Internet while sleeping, for 8 hours, say.
Unfortunately this is no longer possible on Android 6, no permission to
turn off the data network.

I think the app is a decent app which seems to be focused toward "doing
something" when it encounters a specific tower.

It's all new to me, so, it takes a while to correlate the 14-digit and
8-digit numbers it reports for cell towers to actual towers though.

The 14-digit numbers it reports seem to be composed of two components:
a) The 5-digit LAC (local area code)
b) The 9-digit CID (long cell id)

I'm not yet sure what the 8-digit numbers are since the short cell id is
only 5 digits (at least the one I'm currently connected to is).

 

[nospam]

In article <o853oi$127$1@gioia.aioe.org>, Stijn De Jong
<stijndekoning@nlnet.nl> wrote:

On the iPad, OpenSignal fared miserably, but that might be solely due to
the fact that the iPad has T-Mobile for cellular data only.

that's not why

The iPad does
not have a voice service on the SIM card. So maybe these apps only work
with phones and not with tablets?

no.

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 20:18:06 -0500, nospam wrote:

I don't know if a phone can connect to two towers at once
though.

Can it?

it can and does.

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 20:18:06 -0500, nospam wrote:

I don't know if a phone can connect to two towers at once
though.

Can it?

it can and does.

Thanks.

Figuring out what these apps report is a bit confusing for the apps that
report more than one tower.

The bulk of the apps only report the one tower they're connected to at the
moment. They report that tower with a variety of (supposedly unique)
numbers.

For example, using Network Signal Info, at this moment, I have:
1. T-Mobile (both the net operator and the sim operator)
2. HSPA * 14.4 Mbps (sometimes it reports "EDGE * 220kbps")
3. -103dBm * 4ASU
4. 5-digit Cell ID, short
5. 9-digit Cell ID, long
6. 3-letter mobile network code
7. 3-letter mobile country code
8. WLAN IP address
9. WiFi IP address

Slowly I'm correlating that blizzard of numbers with the ones reported by
the two apps that report multiple cell towers.

I think the only difference between the apps that report one number and the
ones that list multiple numbers is logging.

Is there an easy way, with freeware, to self-video the screen?

 

[Carlos E. R.]

On 2017-02-16 21:44, Stijn De Jong wrote:

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 09:27:18 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Q: Does that app show you *all* the towers that your phone can see
(or does it only show the one tower that your phone is connected to)?

Nope. Just one tower.

I think you found the app (NetMonitor) that shows "something" about more
towers; so I will dig further into what it is trying to tell me.

I can mention one app that apparently finds all towers in the vicinity,
but the only info it says about them is an identifier code.

It is "MyProfiles". The goal of the app is to adjust phone settings
according to rules. A rule can trigger on a variety of things, and one
of them is location. The location can be done by GPS, but the app can
instead do it based on which towers it can detect. You can tell it to
trigger "home" if it sees the five towers near home.

This is not the tool you need, but proves that other towers can be
found. The app lists all towers found, and timestamps them. Apparently
only one is active, but somehow it displays how many are within range,
and in another window lists them.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

 

[Savageduck]

On 2017-02-16 20:57:54 +0000, Stijn De Jong <stijndekoning@nlnet.nl> said:

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 11:54:17 -0500, Zaidy036 wrote:

Works on iPhone also

In my first post I placed OpenSignal last on the list of Android apps
simply because OpenSignal mostly seemed to be a lookup to Internet
databases, which isn't what I'm after.

I have OpenSignal on my iPhone and it located two Verizon towers in
the vicinity of my home out at Lake Nacimiento. It also provides usage
and signal data. I manages to do all I need of it.
<https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1295663/Demo/File%20Feb%2016%2C%2014%2010%2045.png>
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opensignal-speed-test-3g-4g/id598298030?mt=8>

--


Regards,

Savageduck

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 19:06:23 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

So, you're stuck with only hearing what your smartphone is programmed
to hear, which I think means your cellular providers mode
(GSM,UMTS,CDMA, etc) and possibly filtered to limit reception to your
cellular vendors SID and NID numbers. I gotta play with Netmonitor
later to see if my Verizon phone will "see" Sprint sites. Verizon
roams onto Sprint when desperate. Both are CDMA, but on different RF
sub-bands. So far, I'm only seeing Verizon, but that might be because
I'm in a lousy location.

Thanks Jeff for that detailed explanation of why I seem to only see the one
tower's cell id that I'm currently connected to.

My problem set is that I installed two different types of local microtowers
and I just wanted to know which ones I'm connected to, and at what
strength.

I have both iOS and Android devices, so it doesn't matter to me which I use
(the iOS devices have far larger screens, so they're preferable).

After running the various programs since last night, I can say that there
are two ways, overall, to get a "survey" of local towers.

1. The real-time apps, such as Network Signal Info, will constantly change
their cellid as they move from tower to tower, so, with screenshots, I can
capture that information for later use. (The tower changes seem to happen
more when I have lousy signal strength than when I have stronger signal
strength.)

2. The logging apps, such as Netmonitor & MyProfiles, seem to log the
various celltower IDs so that we can see a history over time of the cell
towers we have connected to.

Since they only show towers as numbers, it's hard at the moment to
correlate these logs to the two microtowers I have installed. So I'm going
to have to run a few surveys, near home (with and without the microtowers
powered up) and away from home (to remove from the logs the towers that
aren't within 1,000 feet or so of the house).

Over time, I should be able to figure out what the unique cellid of the
microtowers is (which may be a function of their MAC address or serial
numbers for all I know).

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 19:06:07 -0800, The Real Bev wrote:

I really want to know WHERE the cell towers are. T-Mobile has piss-poor
coverage in out-of-the-way places and rather than driving around in
circles I'd like to at least head toward a tower. Will this do what I want?

Following up on what Jeff Liebermann had suggested, and depending on your
operating system, the Network Signal Info app seems to show you what
cellular tower you're connected to, which then can be found on the maps
within the app.

There are two important tabs:
1. Mobile tab
2. Cell Location tab

Here's the "Mobile" tab original screenshot:
http://i.cubeupload.com/2zK8Ys.jpg

And here's a screenshot of the "cell location" tab:
http://i.cubeupload.com/uHE3lA.jpg

Given the unique tower cell id, you can also look up its location
independently on the web, even down to the specific sector antenna that
you're connected to.

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 19:21:40 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I've been thinking of building (and selling) such a device. It can be
done if:
1. You have an RF direction finder.
2. You know the sub-band where to expect the vendors transmissions.
3. You know the SID (system ID) of the vendor.
4. You have a map or database of the vendors service areas.

I used to design direction finders, so I have more than an average
clue as to how this MIGHT be done. I'm not up to speed on cellular,
but I think I can catch up. Basically, an SDR receiver that scans,
looks for a signal direction, identifies it by RF sub-band and service
area, draws a line on a map, and records the line. Drive around a
little and soon you'll have many lines that cross at one point, which
is the cell site. You won't get any ID numbers, but you can get those
from any phone that can display the field service mode.

Marketing research: How much would pay for such a device?

Jeff,
As an aside, I know extremely well a long-ago retired entrepreneur who made
a few dozen millions on Google stock who lives a couple homes away who
often funds enterprising people.

He runs a successful company that makes, sources, and sells technooid
things, so, he might be interested in funding you (for a cut, I would
guess). He also runs a local entrepreneur group that meets weekly on the
peninsula and he's always invited by Google to the Google fairs.

He's extremely technical, if a bit liberal in his politics, so he'll
understand everything technically that you'll be doing. At the very worst,
he'll give you suggestions for improvement.

If you're interested, just say so, and I'll drop you an email.
Otherwise, just ignore.

 

[Stijn De Jong]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 22:58:07 -0500, nospam wrote:

I can only tell you that while Verizon has good coverage with at least
two towers where I live, T-Mobile is mediocre and shows no towers, and
both AT&T and Sprint are poor to non-existant, also showing no local
towers. This leads me to believe that T-Mobile, At&T, and Sprint are
actually roaming in my location, using the Verizon towers.

sprint probably is, but att/tmo aren't.

The Network Signal Info app has three fields that may indicate which
carrier "owns" the network you are using:
1. Net operator (that has two fields currently T-Mobile / T-Mobile)
2. Sim operator (that has one field currently T-Mobile)

Here's a screenshot from the original post of those three fields:
http://i.cubeupload.com/2zK8Ys.jpg

All three of those fields, currently, are showing T-Mobile on my phone,
but, it might be that the net operator could show roaming by showing
different carriers in the first two fields?

There is also a "Roaming" section at the bottom, where, in mine it says:
Roaming: Roaming is OFF

It may be that, when you're roaming, you can see that roaming is on, and
then you might see a net operator of something like:
Verizon / Sprint
Instead of
Verizon / Verizon