GSM Cell ID
 | This article has an unclear citation style. (July 2014) |
A GSM Cell ID (CID) is a generally unique number used to identify each Base transceiver station (BTS) or sector of a BTS within a Location area code (LAC) if not within a GSM network.
In some cases the last digit of CID represents cells' Sector ID
- value 0 is used for omnidirectional antenna.
- values 1,2,3 are used to identify sectors of trisector or bisector antennas.
In UMTS, there's a distinction between Cell ID (CID) and UTRAN Cell ID (also called LCID). The UTRAN Cell ID (LCID) is a concatenation of the RNC-ID (2 bytes, ID of the Radio Network Controller) and Cell ID (4 bytes, unique ID of the Cell). CID is just the Cell ID. The concatenation of both will still be unique but can be confusing in some cellid databases as some store the CID and other store LCID. It makes sense to record them separately as the RNC ID is the same for many cells, the unique element is the CID. [1] [2]
A valid CID ranges from 0 to 65535 on GSM and CDMA networks and from 0 to 268435455 on UMTS and LTE networks. [3]
Public Cell ID databases
A number of public Cell ID databases are available:
 | This article needs to be updated. (October 2014) |
| Name | Unique Cells | Countries (MCC) | Operators (MNC) | Measurements | Free database download | Active project | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unwired Labs' LocationAPI | 51,210,000 | 226 | 1613 | 11 200 million | no | yes | Supports GSM, CDMA, UMTS and LTE technologies via its API.  |
| Combain Mobile - Location-API.com | 49M+ | 200+ | 1000+ | 6+ billion | no | yes | Supports GSM, CDMA, UMTS, LTE and wifi (430+ million). |
| OpenCellID [6] | 6,437,596 | 242 | 1914 | 1 090 million | yes | yes |  Free API key required for database download; the Api key can be registered here: http://opencellid.org/#action=database.requestForApiKey |
| WiGLE [7] | 3,824,894 | no | |||||
| Mozilla Location Service | 1,927,294[8] | 155[9] | 415.93 million[8] | yes[10] | yes | Based on crowd-sourced data. Also WiFi database. | |
| OpenSignal[11] | 824,297 | 825 | 5 186 million | no | no | ||
| http://openbmap.org/ [12] | 695,294 | 194 | 633 | yes | yes | ||
| NetMeterProject.com | 184,925 | 77 | 174 | 10 million | limited; private use only | only a small portion of the database can be downloaded and for private use only: the measurements where the crowd users accepted the "Creative Commons Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 3.0 Deutschland" license | |
| http://celldb.org/ | 138,582 | 221 | 640 | 2 million | password protected | ||
| http://cellspotting.com/ | 118,266 | 648 | last database extract 23.9.2008 | ||||
| http://www.opencelldb.net/ | 34,499 | no | |||||
| http://geomena.org/ | 31 311 [13] |
See also
References
- ^ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7240038/utran-cell-identity-returned-by-getcid
- ^ http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/125400_125499/125401/04.02.00_60/ts_125401v040200p.pdf#page=15
- ^ https://mozilla-ichnaea.readthedocs.org/en/latest/cell.html
- ^ "Unwired Labs Coverage Map". Retrieved 2014-09-02.
- ^ "Combain Mobile Coverage Maps".
- ^ "opencellid.org Realtime Statistics". Retrieved 2014-10-01.
- ^ "Stats WiGLE". Retrieved 2014-10-16.
- ^ a b "Stats Mozilla Location Service". Retrieved 2014-10-22.
- ^ "Cell Download Mozilla Location Service". Retrieved 2014-09-06.
- ^ "Cell Download Mozilla Location Service". Retrieved 2014-09-06.
- ^ "Stats OpenSignalMap". Retrieved 2014-09-06.
- ^ "openBmap". Retrieved 2014-02-22.
- ^ "geomena". Retrieved 2014-01-23.
External links
- OpenCellID - an open source project, aiming to create a complete database of Cell IDs worldwide, with their locations
- cellidfinder - Find the coordinates of any known CellID.
- openBmap - a free and open map of wireless communicating objects (e.g. cellular antenna, Wi-Fi access points...)
- minigps - some information on Cell IDs in china