# OpenCelliD

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> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

**OpenCelliD** is a [collaborative community project](/source/Virtual_community) that collects GPS positions of cell towers and their corresponding [location area identity](/source/Location_area_identity).

More than 49,000 contributors are registered with OpenCelliD, contributing more than 1 million new measurements every day on average to the OpenCelliD database. As of August 21, 2017 the database contained 35.5 million unique cells and 2.1 billion unique measurements.[citation needed]

OpenCelliD publishes an aggregate data set of cell locations licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](/source/Creative_Commons_license) with the intention of promoting free use and redistribution of the data.

## Applications

Data on [Cell IDs](/source/GSM_Cell_ID) and their locations can be used to provide location information to mobile devices. Using Cell ID locations to find device location is more power efficient and often faster[1] than using [satellite-based navigation systems](/source/Satellite_navigation), although it is less precise because of the lack of known Cell IDs.[2] The database is also used to determine the strength of available wireless connections and which mobile phone service providers have coverage in specific geographic locations.[citation needed]

## Data sources

The unique location area identities of the [cell towers](/source/Cell_site) can be collected by devices that utilize the wireless network provided by those cell towers.[3] This data is primarily contributed by [smartphone](/source/Smartphone) users who have installed [apps](/source/Mobile_app), such as OpenCelliD[4] or OpenCelliD Client,[5] and commercial tracking devices such as blackboxes, but also by wholesale data donation by corporations. This is then collected and transferred into the OpenCelliD [API](/source/API) database.[6]

## Licensing

The OpenCelliD database is published under a [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](/source/Creative_Commons_license) open content license with the intention of promoting free use and redistribution of the data.

## References

1. Trevisani, Emiliano & Andrea Vitaletti (2004). ["Cell-ID Location Technique, Limits and Benefits: An Experimental Study"](https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:PE7rrFGhIzsJ:cens.ucla.edu/~mhr/cs219/location/trevisani04.pdf+&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgHKFmi-GlcLR3V2YvPVlbIvk4HmS6WON4puRJQljsCv1bkTIdyQHZcsH8-bjNxUTosYHNFVwt7i1YVOSA9AANnRdSgaqkOGANynDgoa8VvfG5EhuaB1nI-FR4l8eKzX0bdIw9L&sig=AHIEtbTL86-2OpsT0Or89qX7aanc_Z2AAg). *Sixth IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications*. pp. 51–60. [doi:10.1109/MCSA.2004.9](https://doi.org/10.1109/MCSA.2004.9). ISBN 0-7695-2258-0. [S2CID 9885444](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:9885444)

1. Jie Yang; Alexander Varshavsky; Hongbo Liu; Yingying Chen; & Marco Gruteser (2010). "Accuracy characterization of cell tower localization.". *Proceedings of the 12th ACM International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp '10)*

1. Kattan, Francisco. ["Dynamic Cell-ID: Clever way to Block Google, but will it Backfire?"](http://franciscokattan.com/2010/02/06/dynamic-cell-id-clever-way-to-block-google-but-will-it-backfire/). Retrieved February 6, 2010.

1. Unwired Labs. ["inViu OpenCelliD - Apps on Google Play"](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.enaikoon.android.inviu.opencellid). [Google Play](/source/Google_Play). Retrieved 16 September 2018.

1. Wolschon, Markus. ["OpenCelliD Client"](https://archive.today/20130411020355/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=biz.wolschon.android.opencellid.client&hl=en_GB). [Google Play](/source/Google_Play). Archived from [the original](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=biz.wolschon.android.opencellid.client&hl=en_GB) on April 11, 2013.

1. ["OpenCelliD API"](https://wiki.opencellid.org/wiki/API)

## External links

- [OpenCelliD Community](https://community.opencellid.org/)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [OpenCelliD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCelliD) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCelliD?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.