Features
Tower Collector gives you opportunity to contribute in OpenCellID.org and Mozilla Location Services projects by uploading GPS locations of GSM/UMTS/LTE/CDMA cell towers from your area. The measurements help map the extent of mobile phone network coverage. You can use the app to collect data for personal purposes and export them to CSV or GPX files.
- Specially optimized GPS parameters to reduce battery drain.
- Upload to OpenCellID.org and Mozilla Location Services (MLS) projects.
- Export to SD card as CSV or GPX.
- Ad-free, forever!
OpenCellID
The OpenCellID.org project goal is to create a worldwide open source database of mobile cell locations. Tower Collector gives you opportunity to contribute in OpenCellID project by uploading cell towers locations from your area. Collected data can be used to quickly locate devices without enabling GPS.
Mozilla Location Services
Mozilla Location Services (MLS) is an open source project, aiming to create a worldwide database of wireless network infrastructure identifiers (cell towers, WiFi access points, Bluetooth beacons) correlated with GPS locations. Aggregated cell location set is available under the public domain "Creative Commons (CC-0)" license.
Best practices
Tower Collector is perfect app for OpenCellID contributors who want to support the project with measurements from their area. It is good to know what is the right way to collect most valuable measurements during walks and trips.
- Avoid moving back and forth exactly the same way every day. Large number of duplicated locations will not be very useful.
- Try to map new places, especially those less frequently visited as they're often still not covered. Many of towers along main streets have already been mapped.
- From time to time make a round again to collect new cell towers that could appear in your area.
- Collect data for all kinds of networks supported by your device, such as GSM, UMTS, LTE, CDMA, etc. You can achieve this by changing preferred network types in Android settings.
- Use SIM cards from many different network operators to better cover your area.
|
|
|
|