[timerol]

FTA: Our localization approach combines open-source databases (OpenCellID [47], Mozilla Location Services [66], and CellMapper [12]) for PCI-to-coordinate mapping of cell towers with a trilateration technique based on relative signal strengths.

[gruez]

That doesn't really answer the question. Those services basically work the same way as Google's geolocation API, but they're somehow able to magically get better accuracy.

[vlovich123]

Google's cellular geolocation implementation is probably unmaintained & all their focus is on WiFi+GPS+Fusion via SLAM.

[evoke4908]

Your assertion seems to be that Google's location service must be the best, and there's no way a trivial method can outperform it.

Have you considered that google might just perform poorly compared to other methods?

[ssl-3]

Interesting.

CellMapper, at least, is not even a little bit open source. It doesn't even have an API.

This leads me to wonder what other details that FA provides which might have been fabricated from thin air.

[gbru-ty]

If someone is focusing on extracting data for a small area, they can manually browse the CellMapper data. An API isn’t required for that—it’s a matter of accessing and analyzing what’s already available through the platform.

[ssl-3]

Does that make it "open source"?

[emilamlom]

Kinda, yeah. It's open source in the "intelligence" sense of the phrase because it's openly available information (like OSINT), but it's not freely usable.