How to Find Cell Tower Locations and Coverage Quality
One of the basic steps in troubleshooting poor or spotty cell phone reception is to locate the nearest cell sites and find out their coverage ranges. Thanks to certain websites and smartphone apps, it’s not that difficult to do.
Let’s check out some of the common and easy ways to search out any mobile carrier’s cell tower locations. There are various ways to go about it, and usually, a combination of these methods are needed for getting the best results, especially in far-off rural areas.
- First off, check whether your carrier actually provides service in the area.
This is somewhat of a no-brainer, but it’s a prerequisite before you go about looking for those cell towers. Browse your mobile carrier’s website and check their coverage maps. If your provider doesn’t have the information, then you’ll have to rely on user feedback and other tools to get the task done.
These coverage maps usually don’t display cell site locations, but they’re still useful for the purpose of checking service availability.
For U.S. based mobile users, the “Big 4” carriers have extensive service area maps. Just input your address or zip code and you’ll easily find out whether your area’s covered.
- Check nearby cell tower locations using websites.
These services are easy to use. Just plug in your location details and they’ll do the rest. Unfortunately, these cell site locations aren’t exactly vetted by the services. Still, they’re great tools to pair with the other methods we’ll be adding later on.
OpenSignal.com – This is probably the biggest and most reliable tower finder out there. OpenSignal has support for many countries and has a robust, crowd-sourced mobile coverage and tower map. You can filter by carrier and network type as well. Some countries don’t have cell tower maps though.
CellReception.com – This is a popular website that has been featured on major media channels. Unfortunately, it only covers the United States. The site uses crowd-sourced data for tower locations, as well as feedback for service quality for the main mobile carriers.
- Use smartphone apps to find nearby towers.
OpenSignal – OpenSignal’s free app can show you nearby tower locations and then some. The app can help you diagnose cell reception problems. It also has speed metrics for the available carriers in your locale and it can even gauge your current mobile Internet speed as well.
Akvelon’s Signal Finder – This nifty little app is also free and functions based on crowd-sourced information. It works like any other coverage and tower map service and plots the nearest cell sites available, as well as their relative signal strengths.
- So now that you’ve found a nearby cell tower or two, what’s next?
Cell tower location, distance, and signal strength are important factors to consider for this part, hence the earlier prep work. The next logical step is to find a device that will improve signal reception for your place.
Consider in investing a signal booster device to improve your area’s cell phone reception. All-in-one packages like the we Boost Home 4G Signal Booster Kit or the SureCall Flare Signal Booster Kit are easy to install and can support multiple phones and carriers at the same time. There are a lot of kits to choose from, so find one that perfectly fits your requirements and needs.
