Cell tower data for USA?

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07-21-2020 07:41 AM
JayJohnsonWashoeCounty
Occasional Contributor III

I'm looking for cell tower data - anyone know of a source, free or pay?  The FCC has a database, but it only contains a tiny subset of the cell towers, as apparently not all towers are required to register.

Thanks.

Jay
Washoe County GIS
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JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus

When I worked in 9-1-1, the msag provider had cell tower locations and antenna types for our area of operation.

That should just about do it....

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JakeSkinner
Esri Esteemed Contributor

Hi Jay,

The Living Atlas offers a feature service you can use:

https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=15dabb4108254481b591018be2598f3c#overview 

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JayJohnsonWashoeCounty
Occasional Contributor III

Thanks for the quick reply Jake.  I found that same data on the HIFLD Open Data site, but this can't be anything close to all the cell towers.  Washoe County, NV only shows 22 cell towers in this data set.  I don't know much about telco data, so there is likely something I'm not understanding, but I would have thought we'd have thousands of cell towers.  Do you have any insight on this?

Jay

Jay
Washoe County GIS
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JakeSkinner
Esri Esteemed Contributor

It may be worth reaching out to HIFLD.  This is at the bottom of the item details of that service:

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JayJohnsonWashoeCounty
Occasional Contributor III

Yes, I've already done that and HIFLD has referred the question to the FCC.  Waiting for their reply.

Jay
Washoe County GIS
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SpatialNinja
Esri Regular Contributor

Here is another open source location: http://wiki.opencellid.org/wiki/What_is_OpenCellID 

There are some 'pay for' services out there as well. 

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Mosaik

Solutions Engineer | Spatial Ninja  | GIS ️ | Telecommunications
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JayJohnsonWashoeCounty
Occasional Contributor III

Interesting, thanks Patrick.  

I've been able to work with my local E911 Dispatch center and they have been requesting Excel files from all the different carriers.  Seems a rather old-school way to gather data, but it is getting the job done.  

I've signed up for the OpenCellID asite and it will be interesting to see how their data compares.

Jay

Jay
Washoe County GIS
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JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus

The msag provider I worked with only gave data out in spreadsheets.  I even had 'data bases' faxed to me. Old school?  Yeah, you could say that!

That should just about do it....
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JayJohnsonWashoeCounty
Occasional Contributor III

Thanks for sharing that!  Yeah, my data is coming in as spreadsheets (the devil's database).  Your "faxed database" gave me a chuckle.  It is funny how certain sectors of industry seem to be frozen in 1976!

Jay
Washoe County GIS
JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus

When I worked in 9-1-1, the msag provider had cell tower locations and antenna types for our area of operation.

That should just about do it....
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