Identify the Cell Tower & Show on Map

[demingdr]

• UPDATED: Nov 25, 2022 so it works with new CellMapper.net website *

I spent a while figuring out how to identify the exact cell tower to which I’m connected and wanted to share it with others who may find it useful.

To identify the cell tower:

1. Login to your MAX-BR1 router admin page (192.168.1.1 or whatever you set it to)
2. Click “Dashboard” to show the “WAN Connection Status” which should be your cellular connection.
   
   
3. Click the “Details”
4. Now click the blue question mark and then the “For detailed engineering data, please click here”
   
   
5. This will now show your UTRAN CELL ID. Copy this number.
6. Goto www.cellmapper.net
7. First click on “Menu”, then “Provider”, and then select your Provider. It helps to type in the first few characters, like “Veri” for Verizon.
8. Second, click “Tools” and then “eNB ID Calculator”
9. Paste in your UTRAN CELL ID from step 5 and it will calculate your “eNB ID” (decimal).
10. Next click on the cellmapper.net “Map” menu, click on “Search” and scroll to “Tower Search”
11. Paste in your “eNB ID” into the “Tower Search” box and click on the results link.
12. It will now show the exact tower you are connected and the bands available on that tower. It has lots of details.

[wcnetworks]

wow cool find.

thanks for sharing

now where is the results link?

i do not see it after pasting my eNB ID

[demingdr]

Be sure you do step 7 to calculate your “eNB IB” and then enter that number into the “Tower Search” box. You should then see something like this:

Click on the link just under the “Results of tower search xxxxxx” and it will then show you a map like this:

[wcnetworks]

yup i followed your directions to the T including step 7.

It doesnt work but I figured out why.

One needs to select the carrier in order to get the results link which is not in your directions…

Im on a balance 20x BTW…

[wcnetworks]

ok now that Ive figured out how this works, Ive discovered im connecting to a tower further away from my location and thus getting crappy signal. The signal is in the -80s some times.

any way to force a connection to a closer tower?

ive tried disconnecting and reconnecting but got the same tower.

[demingdr]

You cannot lock to a specific tower. However, you can try to adjust the Signal Threshold Settings “Acceptable Level” to only allow stronger signals. The hope is it will then lock into a closer tower. Another idea is to try a Yagi directional antenna to point at the desired tower.

Here’s where that setting is to adjust Signal Threshold:

1. Dashboard > Cellular > Details to get to the “WAN Connection Settings”
2. Scroll down to the “Signal Threshold Settings” and try bumping up the “Acceptable Level”.

I have not tried that, so let me know if it works for you.

[demingdr]

You cannot specify a specific tower, however, you can specify specific LTE bands. If you are lucky you might be able to eliminate a tower that does NOT support a specific band. Try this:

1. Enable ONLY Band 13
2. Reboot, test speed
3. Enable ONLY Band 66
4. Reboot, test speed
5. Enable ONLY Band 4
6. Reboot, test speed