sumanrajpathak/flutter_cell_info

flutter_cell_info

Cell Info Plugin

NetMonster Core

🚧 Work in progress! 🚧

Lightweight Android library that is build over Telephony SDK. NetMonster core is extracted from NetMonster application and backports several Telephony features to older Android devices.

Why use NetMonster Core instead of legacy API?

• Validation - library validates data from RIL and corrects them if possible
• Richer information - additional functions for cell identity and cell signal that will make your code more understandable
• Backport - several non-accessible signal or identity fields are now accessible without boilerplate code
• Tested - tested on real devices, 50 000+ active users

New functions

Here's small comparison for each of voice / data network you can meet.

GSM

function	Min SDK Android	Min SDK NetMonster Core
CGI	-	I (14)
NCC	-	N (24)
BCC	-	N (24)
Band	-	N (24)
TA	O (26)	N (24)

WCDMA

function	Min SDK Android	Min SDK NetMonster Core
CGI	-	I (14)
CID (16b)	-	I (14)
RNC	-	I (14)
Ec/Io	-	M (23)
Band	-	N (24)
BER	-	Q (29)
Ec/No	-	Q (29)
RSCP	-	Q (29)

LTE

function	Min SDK Android	Min SDK NetMonster Core
eCGI	-	I (14)
CID (8b)	-	I (14)
eNb	-	I (14)
RSSI	Q (29)	I (14)
RSRP	O (26)	I (14)
CQI	O (26)	I (14)
SNR	O (26)	I (14)
TA	O (26)	I (14)
Band	-	N (24)

Usage

There are basically two ways you can use this library - as a validation library that will sanitize data from AOSP cause lots of manufacturers modify source code and do not follow public documentation. In that case you'll only need ITelephonyManagerCompat to retrieve AOSP-like models that are properly validated.

The second option is to use advantages of additional postprocessing of NetMonster Core. As a result you'll get more data but correctness is not 100 % guaranteed.

Without additional postprocessing

NetMonster Core focuses on mapping of two AOSP's ways to fetch current cell information:

• TelephonyManager.getAllCellInfo()
• TelephonyManager.getCellLocation() (deprecated in AOSP)
• TelephonyManager.getNeighbouringCellInfo() (removed from AOSP)

Note that some of those methods are deprecated or even removed from AOSP - for more info see documentation of each method.

Postprocessing

In this case you'll need to interact with INetMonster class. Here's list of problems that this library solves.

Merging data from multiple sources

Issue:

• Android offers multiple ways how to get cell information.
• Not all devices support one unified way how to access all the data.

Solution:

• NetMonster Core grabs data from sources you specify, validates and merges them.

Detection of LTE-A & HSPA+42

Issue:

• AOSP cannot detect HSPA+42, only HSPA+.
• AOSP does not offer a way to distinguish whether current network is using carrier aggregation or not.

Solution:

• NetMonster Core attempts to guess HSPA+ 42 availability.
• LTE-CA presence can be guessed based on cell info or detected using hidden APIs.

Using getNetworkType(vararg detectors: INetworkDetector) you can specify which INetworkDetector to use when detecting current network type.

Other features

• Detection of serving cells in 'emergency calls only' mode.
• PLMN addition to non-serving cells in GSM, WCDMA, LTE, TD-SCDMA and NR networks.

Platform support

Feature	Android	iOS
Carrier / SIM info (name, MCC, MNC)	✅	✅¹
Current radio technology (LTE/NR/…)	✅	✅
Cell identity (CID, TAC, PCI, eNb …)	✅	❌²
Signal strength (dBm, RSRP, RSRQ …)	✅	❌²
Neighbouring cells	✅	❌²

¹ Apple deprecated CTCarrier in iOS 16; on iOS 16+ it returns placeholder values (--, 65535).

² iOS exposes no public API for cell-tower identity, signal strength or neighbouring cells. On iOS, getCellInfo therefore returns the current radio access technology per SIM in primaryCellList with identity/signal fields left null, and neighboringCellList is always empty.

The Dart API (CellInfo.getCellInfo, CellInfo.getSIMInfo, CellInfo.sharedPreference) and JSON response shape are identical across both platforms.

Originally forked from cell_info

Credit to - eslamfaisal