Map of megaphone base stations for google earth. MTS base stations - your unobvious opportunities
Probably everyone knows that the operator’s base station is what a mobile phone “clings” to over the air so that its owner stays in touch. If there is an MTS base station nearby, then your smartphone has fast mobile Internet, and you can hear the other person on the phone as if he were in the same room with you. This is a generally correct idea of a base station, but still too simple for a device with such versatile capabilities. See for yourself.
The Internet is our everything
For many of us, the Internet is a means to always stay in touch, an opportunity to be in the center of events. A lot of convenient services depend on it, without which we cannot imagine ourselves today - from instant messengers and social networks to taxi ordering and online stores. The fact that the Internet is everywhere in our lives is the merit of MTS base stations, which are always ready to help you stay online, instantly connect you with another area of the city or a friend from distant Australia, convey good news and share photos, show movies or play music from the network.
Invisible
Let's say you are sitting at home or at work. You don't see any base station. But your phone works: calls are made, notifications from VKontakte and WhatsApp are received, funny videos from YouTube are played. This is because the MTS base station does not have to literally “see” your phone: it can connect to it using a radio signal reflected from walls and other obstacles, and many walls that are not too thick for the base station are completely translucent, that is, they do not interfere with communication .
Neighborly
Also, if the base station near your home or office suddenly goes down, your phone will most likely still remain online. This is because usually your mobile phone is “looked after” not by one base station, but by two or even three, and each of them is ready to pick up a fallen banner at any moment. Of course, occasionally it may turn out that there are no other base stations nearby, but MTS always tries to make sure that your base station always has responsive neighbors.
Pass it on to someone else
By the way, when you move, base stations skillfully pass your phone to each other, like a relay baton. You don’t need to worry about this at all: MTS base stations can negotiate among themselves about such things. There are no border quarrels over the desire to send you an SMS, and a mobile conversation started in the area of one base station can continue without interruption in the area of another station and end near the third or fourth.
Where are you?
When you connect to the base station, it immediately understands that you are somewhere nearby. If your phone is “seen” by three or more base stations, then together they can determine your location very accurately. Geolocation services are built on this, which, for example, help parents always find out where their children are, and transport companies - control their cars.
Above all
MTS base stations are able to set priorities. It can't be that someone next to you who needs to download a big movie from the Internet will take over all the resources of the nearest base station, and you won't even be able to send a comment on Facebook. Moreover, the base station is able to give up part of its resources allocated for the Internet for calls. This, for example, is sometimes useful at train stations, where there are a lot of people, and they constantly need to call each other to find each other, inform about their arrival, or call a taxi. If the base station sees that somewhere, on the contrary, the Internet is more needed, it will take this into account.
Where there are people, there is connection
Mobile communications are available where base stations are located. But where are they placed? It depends on people, including you. If somewhere in the city too many subscribers begin to constantly claim connection to one single base station due to the fact that a new shopping center has opened in this place, MTS will very soon launch another base station nearby - a new one. It is not people who are chasing the MTS mobile network, but it is developing based on their needs, which, as you know, are increasingly flowing into the mobile Internet. This is an almost magical vicious circle: in recent years, the development of the mobile network has allowed us to get more and more from the Internet, and our growing needs for it determine how the mobile network develops.
Get yours
You may live or work in a special place, you may have a poorly designed room - in general, where it is very difficult for the MTS base station to connect to your phone. However, if you have wired Internet in the same room, you can easily get your own MTS base station, for example, like this one. If you want, use it even alone.
It is safe
So, base stations appear where people need them, and some people can buy an MTS base station for themselves. However, some still believe that base station radiation poses a threat. Such people may anxiously point a finger at a tower that has appeared nearby and gossip with friends about sudden headaches. In fact, the “rays” from the base station are harmless, and any person receives more radiation from his own mobile phone. By the way, the farther the base station is from you, the more your smartphone “tries” to be in touch, showering its owner with radiation more and more abundantly. However, even with such diligence, you have absolutely nothing to worry about, since it is not the extremely weak radiation of a mobile phone that is dangerous, but talking on it while driving or while crossing the road.
It's fun
MTS strives to introduce new stations in the regions of the country as actively as possible - we know that literally every year high-quality communications and fast mobile Internet mean more and more to people. If an MTS base station appears somewhere near you, this is definitely a good omen!
The first fossil remains of base stations of a family of mobile television systems in the Moscow region date back to 1994. These were real dinosaurs - huge and with a small functional brain volume. Outwardly, they looked like a large refrigerator; they worked only in one standard and in one frequency range. The first MTS base station in Moscow operated in the GSM standard and only in the 900 MHz frequency range.
What the “dinosaurs” of cellular communications consisted of and how they evolved to this day will be told by Konstantin Luchkov, an expert in the radio access network architecture department at MTS. His nickname Let's give him the floor.
Hello! Let's take a look into this “refrigerator” right away.
The top shelf contains power supplies, control boards and a transport card. Just below, in the “freezer compartment”, transceivers and duplexers lie in stacks.
And here is a typical small-sized (but very cozy) “kitchen” of those times in which our “dinosaur” lived.
The “kitchen” was densely packed with telecommunications equipment. This includes a power supply system, an air conditioning system, and a rack with transport equipment (for example, radio relay equipment). Each of these systems, comparable in size to the BS, was a separate cabinet. By the way, in each “kitchen” there was a table and a chair (on the left in the photo).
But let's return to our “dinosaur”. Thick feeders (two fingers thick) stretched from the top cover of the base station, which came out of the container to the antennas. The typical length of the feeder route was about 70 meters; two feeders were connected to each antenna (diversity reception was used). There were three antennas on a typical single-band station. That is, at the first stations six feeder routes were laid, and later (when the new GSM1800 band appeared) six more.
One of the main disadvantages of using feeder routes was the loss of signal power, which is directly proportional to the length of the feeder route and the frequency range used. These shortcomings pushed the evolution of base station equipment to a new stage of development.
Ten years after the appearance of the first cellular base station in the Moscow region, in 2004, critical changes occurred in the telecommunications environment. A new interface for interaction between the controller and BS radio modules has appeared - CPRI (Common Public Radio Interface).
Chapter 2. Present
The old “refrigerators” have been replaced by a new type of base station - with a distributed architecture. Cumbersome feeder routes are no longer needed. The base station was divided into a system module (BS brain) the size of an office manager’s case and a transceiver (aka RRU - remote radio unit), connected to each other via an optical line through the CPRI radio interface. All that remains of the feeder are rudiments in the form of short jumpers (1-3 meters) connecting the transceiver to the antenna. In addition to the existing GSM, UMTS and LTE standards have been introduced. Outdoor base stations appeared, the placement of which no longer required a room (“kitchen”).
Distributed BS turned out to be much more adapted to life. They became smaller and easier to place. Electricity consumption has decreased since power losses in the feeder have disappeared. New functionality has appeared.
Until a certain time, each standard required its own equipment to operate - separate transceivers (RRU), separate system modules (SM), separate antennas. After almost another ten years, in 2013, the Russian Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications allowed technological neutrality, which made it possible to implement the LTE standard at GSM900/1800 frequencies. It should also be noted that even earlier, in 2011, the technical neutrality of GSM/UMTS900 was allowed. New requirements were presented to the base station equipment that had to be met - the size of the stations decreased, and the functionality of the brain increased.
Transceivers have learned to support operation in three standards: GSM/UMTS/LTE. Nowadays, a typical case is the simultaneous operation of a transceiver in two standards, for example, in GSM/LTE1800. This mode of operation is called RF-sharing.
Then the need arose to work simultaneously in different standards of system modules. This functionality is called single RAN (single radio subsystem equipment for several standards) and it has already been implemented on the MTS network.
The emergence of new standards (such as LTE), as well as more complex functionality, has led to increased demands on synchronization accuracy. Accuracy of phase (aka time) synchronization was required, which immediately affected the composition of the base station. A GPS/Glonass satellite synchronization module has been added to its composition.
A new subtype of compact base stations has appeared - small cell. It is a compact base station, no larger than a sneaker box, that combines a system module, a transceiver, a GPS/Glonass module and, as a rule, an antenna in a single housing.
The compactness of small cells allowed MTS to install stations almost anywhere: in subway cars, cafes and office buildings. By the way, if desired, every MTS subscriber can buy a compact base station. The station will connect to the network core automatically when connected to the Internet.
Chapter 3. Future
The bright future of cellular communications is the 5G standard (you can read more about it). Base stations will inevitably have to change again, since the 5G standard involves the use of higher orders of MIMO, which makes it impossible to connect the transceiver to the antenna via a jumper. Too many jumpers will be needed: 16, 32, or maybe 64. The radio module will be integrated into the antenna. This solution is called an active antenna system (AAS – active antenna system).
In appearance, AAS is indistinguishable from a regular cellular antenna, but look at how many base station elements are inside it.
The base station implemented on the AAS solution is now a system module (SM) connected to the “antenna” (to the AAS). A hybrid option is also possible, when the active antenna system includes several active bands (several active band transceivers) and simultaneously supports the connection of several passive bands. In this case, for passive bands, separate RRUs are used that are not part of the active antenna system.
But the evolution of base station equipment probably won’t stop there. One of the possible scenarios in the future may be the transition to a cloud architecture of base station equipment. Perhaps one day we will be able to completely abandon the use of the system module. There will only be one block left at the base station - an active antenna system with integrated functionality of a system module, which will be connected via an optical transport line to the network core.
In conclusion, I would like to proudly note that MTS takes a leading position in 5G testing and is already actively using the following on the network:
5G-ready BS equipment;
BS cloud-ready equipment;
AAS equipment (the network of several Russian cities is completely implemented on AAS).
Coverage map of MTS, Megafon, Yota, Tele2, Beeline, Rostelecom, Sberbank, SkyLink LTE are needed to help choose the best mobile Internet and cellular operator at our location.
Very often, you and I have to look for a mobile Internet zone for better access from a wireless network.
For this purpose, a unique map of 4G network coverage in Russia was created. The inconsistency of the wireless signal often leaves much to be desired, and many cellular subscribers experience a lot of trouble when the signal constantly drops out.
MTS 2G, 3G and 4G coverage area
MTS network coverage is updated regularly and our visitors can see the latest map of this mobile operator. The color scheme is distributed in the following order:
Red LTE, pink 3G, pale pink 2G. When viewing the map, you see a list of available coverage of mobile operators and the Internet. 
On the buttons where a separate selection of 2G, 3G, LTE networks is possible, you will notice a characteristic sign next to the operator’s name. By clicking on the button, a tab with available Internet standards to choose from will open.
All available communication standards are marked in the photo. By pressing again, you can cancel the selected network, thus forcing only the one you need to load.
Megafon 2G, 3G and 4G coverage area
Cellular networks and mobile Internet have become widespread. Almost every resident of this region has smartphones and tablets. To obtain information from official sources, we recommend looking at the Megafon coverage map on the website of this provider. 
Tele2 2G, 3G and 4G coverage area
When we talk about Tele2, we remember low tariffs and decent communication services.
In almost every village and city, in different regions, territories and republics, LTE network coverage is different from each other. Tele2's very large infrastructure 4g coverage area will help this operator turn its 3g coverage area into the fastest possible Internet. 
Beeline 2G, 3G and 4G coverage map
Beeline is not as active as in previous years, but in some parts of our country it has a very large subscriber base. Cellular communications have been modernized and now LTE Internet has become a reality for Beeline. 05/15/2018 We have added the network zone of this provider to the general coverage map. It is worth noting that this people's map was obtained from open sources of the site geo.minsvyaz.ru. It is for informational purposes only and cannot be used to accurately determine the presence of a signal in the area of the Beeline network. Therefore, this network is not added to the 4G selection button. But a visitor to our resource can evaluate the network zones of this cellular operator. 
Yota 2G, 3G and 4G coverage
The new provider, with the first 4G frequencies in Russia, was founded in 2006. Already in 2008, the first Wimax 4G network in Russia was launched. Through trial and error, the decision was gradually made to switch to the more promising LTE technology. Now Yota is one of the divisions of Megafon, one of the “Big Three” cellular monopolists in the country. This company is interesting because it still has unlimited tariffs and options. 
By clicking on the picture you will be taken to the Yota website
How to use a card from MTS, Megafon, Yota, Tele2, Beeline, Rostelecom, Sberbank, SkyLink
- Yota:
- Signal Yota 2G
- Signal Yota 3G
- Signal Yota 4G
- Megaphone:
- Signal Megafon 3G
- Signal Megafon 4G
- Signal Megafon 4G+
- MTS:
- MTS 2G signal
- MTS 3G signal
- MTS 4G signal
- Tele 2:
- Tele2 2G signal
- Tele2 3G signal
- Tele2 4G signal
- Crimea:
- Signal Crimea 2G
- Signal Crimea 3G
- Signal Crimea 4G
- Rostelecom:
- RTK 2G signal
- RTK 3G signal
- RTK 4G signal
- Sberbank:
- Signal Sberbank 2G
- Signal Sberbank 3G
- Signal Sberbank 4G
- Beeline:
- Beeline 2G signal
- Beeline 3G signal
- Beeline 4G signal
- TTK:
- TTK 2G signal
- TTK 3G signal
- TTK 4G signal
- SkyLink:
- Sky signal
- Volna:
- Volna 2G signal
- Volna 3G signal
- Volna 4G signal
- KTKRU:
- KTKRU 2G signal
- KTKRU 3G signal
- Win mobile:
- Win 2G signal
- Win 3G signal
- Win 4G signal
View
To begin with, please note that when you first visit the Internet Coverage page, the 4G mobile network zone in Russia (all operators) is disabled by default. When you select 4G, you will see the LTE coverage areas (and the approximate location of the towers) of your city, region (location) automatically determined by geolocation tools.
Buttons
At the top of the Map there are buttons for other mobile Internet operators, when clicked, a layer of the communication network location zone is loaded.
In the process of searching and determining the best coverage area, you can layer different operators on top of each other and easily determine which operator is right for you.
Coating Color MTS, Megafon, Yota, Tele2, Beeline, Rostelecom, Sberbank, SkyLink
At the bottom of the Coverage Map there are hint pictures with the color background of each operator. When simultaneously turning on the Coverage of several layers of Communication Maps at once, be careful and by turning on and off the operator buttons, accurately determine the operator most convenient for you - MTS, Megafon, Yota, Tele2.
Accuracy Coverage Areas MTS, Megafon, Yota, Tele2, Rostelecom, Sberbank, SkyLink
Tele2 network coverage accuracy has been corrected; for comparison, we recommend going to the company’s official website
P.S. – 03/01/2018 mvno (virtual cellular operator) coverage was added Sberbank-Let's Talk (2G,3G,4G), from 09/26/2018 the official name is SBERMobile.
12/21/2016 – coverage maps of Rostelecom (2G,3G,4G) and SkyLink (LTE-450 MHz. Moscow, Krasnodar and adjacent regions were added. Coverage is growing - you can always determine more precisely on our map)).
01/28/2018 – Coverage of the Republic of Crimea has been updated.
05/16/2018 – Added introductory 2G,3G,4G Beeline coverage.
06/01/2018 – Network coverage of the new mobile virtual operator TTK appeared on our map.
08/19/2018 – Detailed coverage of the Crimean operator zone has been added: Volna mobile (Volna) – website, Krymtelecom (KTKRU) – website, WIn mobile (WIN) – website.
Idea and development Yota-Faq.ru - The best Coverage Map of Moscow and all of Russia
The MTS operator is undoubtedly the leader among Russian cellular service providers. The largest number of base stations, a huge range of territories where the service is available, the number of active subscribers - all this helps the company maintain its first position in the market. It is important that even in the most remote locality all people remain in touch.
MTS communication coverage map
According to the map of MTS coverage area in Russia for 2017, the operator’s coverage in the 2G network is very large. In almost every corner of our country you can use a SIM card from an operator and make a voice call.
Fewer and fewer new towers are being opened in this format - more often they are built by 3rd and 4th generations. The distribution of the territory of 3G availability from MTS is quite large - almost all cities and villages are covered, even very small ones.
It is more difficult to use 3G on country trips, but certain places are still covered by the network. It is better to check on the map before your trip whether 3G is available at the picnic site or not.
The map of the 4G coverage area from MTS shows that only large metropolitan areas with a large number of subscribers are served in this format. But every year the operator expands its range and opens an impressive number of towers, and more and more cities begin to operate in 4G format.
MTS coverage area in Moscow and the Moscow region
In the capital of our vast homeland, MTS occupies a leading position among operators. Every year a large number of new communication towers are installed - all so that Muscovites do not experience difficulties when using services.
On the map, the MTS distribution area in the Moscow region is depicted accurately, taking into account all the geographical features of the area. You can see that in this territory there are networks of both second, third and fourth generations. Residents of the Moscow region, like Muscovites, have access to all modern advances in the field of communication services.
Internet availability zone
In the modern world, when choosing an operator, the quality of the supplied mobile Internet plays an important role. Every day the volume of traffic consumed by users is increasing. And the reason for this is a significant number of games, videos and applications adapted for use on smartphones.
Companies are trying to improve the speed and volume of traffic provided on their tariffs. The Internet coverage area from MTS is also increasing. But the speed of mobile Internet is not the same everywhere.
The thing is that the technical characteristics of the supplied communication services may differ, depending on the network congestion, the presence of communication towers, and even due to the terrain. But already now, many users from large Russian cities can use the Internet at maximum speed thanks to 4G.
Always before traveling to another city or to nature, check on our website whether certain networks are available in the area you need. In the most unexpected situation, you will stay in touch with your family and friends.
There are many ways to determine location, such as satellite navigation (GPS), WiFi and cellular location.
In this post, we tried to check how well the technology for determining location using cell towers in the city of Minsk works (provided that only open databases of GSM transmitter coordinates are used).
The principle of operation is that a cell phone (or cellular communication module) knows which base station transceiver it is served by, and having a database of coordinates of base station transmitters, you can approximately determine your location.
Now a little about what a transmitter is in the understanding of OpenCellID and how the OpenCellID database is populated. This database is filled in various ways, the simplest is to install an application on a smartphone, which records the coordinates of the phone and the serving base station, and then sends all measurements to the server. The OpenCellID server calculates the approximate location of the base station based on a large number of measurements (see figure below). Thus, the coordinates of the wireless network are calculated automatically and are very approximate.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
Now let's move on to the question of how to use this database. There are two options: use the Cell ID to coordinates translation service provided by OpenCellID.org, or perform a local search. In our case, the local method is preferable, because we're going to be driving a 13km route and the web will be slow and inefficient. Accordingly, we need to download the database to the laptop. This can be done by downloading the cell_towers.csv.gz file from downloads.opencellid.org.
The database is a table in CSV format, described below:
- code of the country; - operator code; - area code; - transmitter identifier; - longitude of the transmitter; - latitude of the transmitter.
All cellular modules support the following commands: AT+CREG, AT+COPS (serving base station), AT+CSQ (signal level from the base station). Some modules allow you to recognize, in addition to the serving transmitter, also neighboring ones, i.e. monitor base stations using the AT^SMONC commands for Siemens and AT+CCINFO for Simcom. I had a SIMCom SIM5215E module at my disposal.
Accordingly, we used the AT+CCINFO command, its format is given below.
We are interested in the following parameters:
- indicator of the serving transmitter; - indicator of a nearby transmitter; - code of the country; - operator code; - area code; - transmitter identifier; - received signal power in dBm.
Monitoring is working - you can go.
The route ran in the western part of Minsk along the street. Matusevich, Pushkin Ave., st. Ponomarenko, st. Sharangovicha, st. Maxim Goretsky, st. Lobanka, st. Kuntsevshchina, st. Matusevich.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
The log was recorded at intervals of 1 second. Converting CellID to coordinates, it turned out that 6498 calls to the OpenCellID database were successful, and 3351 calls did not find matches in the database. Those. The hit rate for Minsk is approximately 66%.
The figure below shows all the transmitters that were found in the log and were in the database.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
The picture below shows all serving transmitters that were found in the log and were in the database. Those. a similar result can be obtained on any cellular module or phone.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
As you can see, at one point we were served by a transmitter located behind the traffic intersection at the intersection of the street. Pritytsky and MKAD. Most likely, this is a suburban base station serving subscribers at a distance of several kilometers, which leads to significant errors in determining location using Cell ID.
Since our SIMCom SIM5215E at each moment of time shows not only the serving transmitter, but also neighboring ones and the signal levels from them, we will try to calculate the coordinates of the device based on all the data available at a particular moment in time.
We will calculate the subscriber's coordinates as a weighted average of the transmitters' coordinates:
Latitude = Sum (w[n] * Latitude[n]) / Sum(w[n])
Longitude = Sum (w[n] * Longitude[n]) / Sum(w[n])
As is known from the theory of radio wave propagation, the attenuation of a radio signal in a vacuum is proportional to the square of the distance from the transmitter to the receiver. Those. When removed by a factor of 10 (for example, from 1 km to 10 km), the signal will become 100 times weaker, i.e. will decrease by 20 dB in power. Accordingly, the weight for each term is defined as:
w[n] = 10^(RSSI_in_dBm[n] / 20)
Here we assumed that the power of all transmitters is the same; this assumption is erroneous. But due to the lack of information about the power of the base station transmitter, one has to make deliberately rough assumptions.
As a result, we get a more detailed picture of locations.
Map Members OpenStreetMap
As a result, the route turned out to be well mapped out, with the exception of the ejection towards the interchange on the Moscow Ring Road, for the previously described reason. In addition, over time, the coordinate database will be filled, which should also increase the accuracy and availability of Cell ID location technology.
Thank you for your attention. Questions and comments are welcome.
