How to find your location using GSM data

Boris Landoni writes to call attention to his interesting article in Open Electronics describing how to find your location using GSM Cell ID data:

The radio mobile network is made up of a number of adjacent radio cells, each of which is characterized by an identifier consisting of four data: a progressive number (Cell ID), a code related to the area in which that given cell is (LAC, or Local Area Code), the code of national network to which the cell belongs (MCC, an acronym for Mobile Country Code), and finally the company code (MNC, or Mobile Network Code), which obviously identifies the phone company itself. For this reason, once a cell name and coordinates are known, and considering the maximum distance allowed between this cell and a phone before the phone connects to a new cell, it is possible to find out, approximately, the most distant position of the phone itself. To explain how the systems works, we made this page. You have to insert the data of the GSM cell and then the PHP page gives you the position and the range.

This uses the cell tower ID info that you can obtain from many smartphones, or from data from a freestanding GSM dev board (such as the Mini GSM Localizer from Open Electronics) and runs it through a Google Maps database which includes cell towers and locations, then returns a map showing your position. Interesting way to find the location of towers your phone is accessing, and thereby your relative location in reference thereto, on a device without GPS.

This entry was posted in RF, surveillance, techniques, wireless and tagged cellular geolocation, GSM.