Ericsson releases "free" cell-id lookup API

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

2009/10/23 Onen <onen.om at free.fr>:
> Baruch Even wrote:
>> Alex (Maxious) Sadleir wrote:
>>> https://labs.ericsson.com/apis/mobile-location/documentation/cell-id-look-up-api
>>>
>>> Limited to 100 requests per day. Perhaps I'm getting the syntax wrong
>>> (made sure to use hex like their example does) but when I tried to
>>> compare it to cells in the openmoko cellid databases, I got back "404
>>> - The requested resource () is not available."
>>
>> The main limitation of such APIs is that you have to be online to use
>> them, so you must use a GPRS connection to get your location.
>> openbmap-locator can work offline as well.
>>
>
> Is it very much different than the Google location API?
Definately - It only gives you 1 cell position (latitude/longitude, is
this the position of the cell tower?), a locality name and an accuracy
measure in meters per API call. This is unlike the Google API where
the whole locating operation can be considered server side and other
attributes such as rxlevel and timing advance can be considered. So
you would have to develop your own application to combine results from
both serving and neighbour cells in a meaningful way (their example
only tells you the serving cell location) and you still would not have
rxlevel/timing advance information.


> As Baruch said, you must be online, and I add you must send your GSM
> data (and as such your position) to a third party.
> Local service on the phone as openBmap-locator from Baruch is the right
> way to go for performance, easiness, and privacy.
I look forward to this :)