I also use BeaconDB since maybe a year in the same configuration as Manoj listed. I live in the Ile de France region and I had a lot of travel accross France and a Trip to Japan.
No specific location issue.
So:
France/Ile de France + France/Rhone Alpes + France/Bouches du Rhone + France/Isère + France/Pyrénées Atlantiques + France/Pyrénées Orientales + France/Hautes-Pyrénées + France/Oise + France/Somme + France/Loir-et-Cher + France/Indre-et-Loire + Japan/Kanto + Japan/Kansai + Netherlands/North-Holland + UK/ North West England
Orange for Europe and a mix between NTT and Softbank for Japan
No major trouble that I can remember, so precise enough
If you want more accurate results, and don’t want get interference when you have very great and can’t avoided GPS signals or you’re running test on Google GMS phones etc, you could directly test this by installing BeaconDB Nlp NlpBackend (GitHub) and My Location (F-Droid)
As mentioned above, it’s very easy to add the BeaconDB service where it doesn’t already exist.
Download the ‘NeoStumble’ application (on F-Droid or on AppLounge)
Authorize the application when you first open it.
To add the service to a specific area: press ‘Start measurements’ and move to the zone in question. Once done, click on ‘Stop measurements’, then ‘Send reports’.
You’re done! The location in question will now be covered by BeaconDB,
Below are two screenshots of the map of the area where I live, covering about 700 km2. The first was taken yesterday, the 2nd 10 days ago. In the meantime I’ve mapped several of my journeys so that I can record them on BeaconDB.
So obviously, if all /e/ (and others) users did the same, we could cover a large part of the planet in a few months
I have been testing for a few weeks now in Morbihan, France with Telecoop (Orange) provider and it’s really working well outdoors. I have also been contributing a lot with NeoStumbler and Tower Collector, my region is now much better mapped. Location indoors is not very precise even after sending data to NeoStumbler but I’m still unsure about how to properly test this, given:
which I don’t know how to do.
In any case, I can only support this kind of community contribution project and hope /e/OS will integrate it in the long-term.
Sorry I missed your previous comment! Now I can see that indoors location is accurate without GPS signals. Very useful, thanks.
Can the BeaconDB Nlp Backend app have another utility within /e/OS to replace Mozilla Nlp Backend or do you use it only for this indoors location check?
Indeed. For example, Canonical will introduce BeaconDB as the official Geo-provider since it’s next Ubuntu release 25.04!
So Ubuntu will take indoor location from BeaconDB very soon. Will be also in the next LTS 26.04 release.
Any NLPBackend should not needed today, because MicroG itself is now just achieved this by specifying the Geolocation API endpoint address, MicroG itself can interact with the Geolocation API.
I’m using BeaconDB since approximately 4 weeks. I use it in 3 different country:
France center 37000 : I can confirm indoor location is OK
France south west 19500 : indoor location is NOT working
France west 85490 : indoor location is NOT working
These results are fully inline with the BeaconDB coverage map. I have to truthfully say that I don’t use NeoStumble App. I will install it and send some reports from time to time.
if one has esoteric reasons to not contribute mapped wifi mac addresses: of the 3 apps recommended at beacondb: NeoStumbler, Network Survey and Tower Collector, the latter (true to its name) will do towers only and no wifis. You can’t choose to upload only cell towers with the other two.
To simplify tech for non tech readers. If you need to know your location use GPS. If others wants to know your location they use network location services. Even if you disable network location services you can still be located indirectly as long as other users around you are using these services. This is primary goal of these services: to know your location even if you don’t want to publish it. You can easly switch off gps but not really these services. So it is interested how privacy oriented Rom have focus on network location services. What goal exactly is wanted to be achieved with this?
