Trouble with cell-based location on ELS61 | Telit Cinterion IoT Developer Community
January 26, 2020 - 3:51pm, 1567 views
Hi,
I am trying to get neigborhood cell information from the ELS61 (via AT commands) to use with cell-based location services (Google Geolocation, etc).
So far I have been able to find the following relevant entries, none of which seem to help:
https://iot-developer.thalesgroup.com/threads/ehs6-localization-gsm-cells
https://iot-developer.thalesgroup.com/showcase/cell-id-based-positioning...
https://iot-developer.thalesgroup.com/threads/cell-tower-triangulation
In my experiments on 4G, both SNMON and SMONP *always* return empty lists for the neighbor cells. If I use COPS,2 to unregister and then execute SNMON="NBC",2 the modem returns an error "Operation not allowed". So I have not been able to find any set of AT commands that does the job.
Is there a set of AT commands that reliably returns a list of neighbor cells on 2G, 3G, and 4G networks? (if I have to unregister from the network during the scan then that's not ideal but acceptable)
Thanks,
-- Terrence
Hello,
Have you also tried these commands while the module is registered to other technilogies? Do you have the same result when the module is powered on and registered for some time already?
As for at^snmon="NBC" it ***** configuration, for example like below:
AT^SNMON="NBC/CFG/3GPP",1,"ALL",6
then it should work while the module is registered.
For AT^SNMON="INS",2 it is recommended that the module is not registered.
Regards,
Bartłomiej
Hi,
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I tried
AT^SNMON="NBC/CFG/3GPP",1,"ALL",6
but I always seem to get an empty list on 4G, even after the device is connected several minutes. Do I need to wait longer? I have not tried 2G or 3G as I don't control the connection establishment.
With
AT^SMONP
I do sometimes get a single line
6200,-16.0,-108,--,202,--,--,--,--,--
which is the connected cell?
For
AT^SNMON="INS",2
I get
"INS",0,"0x00000001",7,"165A626","E918","26203",252,251,10,10,-106,-7.5
"INS",0,"0x00000004",7
"INS",0,"0x00000080",7
"INS",0,"0x00080000",7
"INS",0,"0x08000000",7
which I am not sure how to interpret. It seems only one cell is found, but no others?
In summary, I never get more information than for one cell. On other modems I seem to readily get 3 to 5 neighboring cells in the same (urban) environment.
Thanks,
-- Terrence
Hello,
It looks like SMONP does provide the cellID for 2G only. But SNMON="NBC" does. I think that when you use SMONP and SNMON while the module is registered, it does not perform the netowork scan for you but probides you the information it actually has which is what it actually ***** to have. I tried this and there was also not much of the information returned or nothing.
The current serving cell you can always verify with AT^SMONI command.
But if you deregister from the network (AT+COPS=2) and use AT^SNMON="INS",2 command the module shoud perform the network scan. In my case it returns many cells then.
Best regards,
Bartłomiej
Hi,
Ok, then I'll look into SNMON="INS",2 some more and see if I can get it to return more than just one cell.
Thanks,
-- Terrence