Tower Locator Help

Map Basics

The Tower Locator App presents the locations of tower sites for each licensed wireless provider. Each site is indicated by a colour coded icon positioned on the map. A legend is present in the settings panel, which is accessed via the "gear" icon (

) in the toolbar of the map.

Also on the settings panel are controls to select individual providers to be displayed on the map. Sites for the "big three" providers, Bell, Rogers and Telus can be selected individually. Sites for all providers other than the "big three" can be selected as an entire group or for one provider individually through the drop down box listing the other providers. All or a combination of these options can be selected at one time.

Common map features are available, such as road, terrain, topographic and satellite imagery map backgrounds with pan and zoom. Much of the general map data and imagery is provided thanks to OpenStreetMap. They welcome you to report problems or fix the map.

Geolocation

The Geolocation "crosshair" icon (

) in the toolbar of the map initiates the process of determining your geographic location via GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth or other available location methods. This process may take several seconds. If successful, the map will pan and zoom to the calculated location and a location pin (

) will be placed on the map at the current estimated position along with a circle indicating the estimated error in the determined location.

Note that the app must have location permission in order for geolocation to work.

Once placed, the location pin may be dragged to a new position on the map at any time for reference.

Location Search

The search "magnifying glass" icon ( Search

) in the toolbar of the map allows you to conduct location searches within the map. Searches can be conducted for various geographic terms, such as cities, street addresses or GPS coordinates. If a location is successfully found, the map will pan and zoom to the located spot.

Tower Details

To obtain more details about any tower site on the map, click on the tower icon of interest. A pop up window will present the site or a list of sites that were clicked on, indicating the provider of the site and a list of the frequency bands they are operating on at the site. Each provider site listed can be further clicked to provide even more details about the site.

Additional Details

Each transceiver (transmitter/receiver) operating for the provider at the site will be listed. A transceiver and it's antenna creates the "cell" for communications and there are typically several operating at each site.

Included with the transceiver details are the frequency band of operation (Freq), the bandwidth (BW) and power (Power) of the communications signal, the height of the transceivers' antenna above the ground (Hgt) and the elevation where the site is located (Elev). The antenna azimuth (Azm) indicates the angle from true north of the direction of maximum radiated power.

Note: There has been an ongoing issue with the power levels being reported, as such I've removed the units from the display. The values are supposed to be EIRP, however the data is not consistent with that. For the most part, it appears that each provider is reporting all their sites in a consistent manner, however the providers are doing something different from each other.

The site provider and geographic coordinates of the site are presented at the top of the list.

If the location pin is present on the map after geolocation, manual location or after being dragged, the distance and true north bearing from the location pin to the tower site will be presented at the bottom of the list.

Protocol/Technology/Generation

Information about the protocol being used on a transceiver is not present in the available data. LTE(4G) and 5G are deployed on many frequencies with varying bandwidths.

Frequencies

Frequency bands listed on the map correspond to 5G/LTE bands as detailed in the folowing table. 5G bands generally use the same numbering as LTE, but the bands are prefixed with 'n'. While a single frequency band may correspond to several 5G/LTE bands, not all 5G/LTE bands would need to be supported for operation.

Frequency Band	LTE Band(s)	5G Band(s)
600MHz	71	n71
700MHz	12, 13, 17, 29, 85	n12, n13, n17, n29, n85
850MHz	5	n5
1900MHz	2, 25	n2, n25
2100MHz	4, 66	n66
2300MHz	30, 40	n30, n40
2600MHz	7, 38	n7, n38
3500MHz	42	n78

Tower Location vs Service and Coverage

The presence of a tower doesn't always imply service and coverage, nor does the absence of one convey no service or coverage. It's all in the details.

For starters, a tower may not provide service for all protocols on all frequencies. The device you are using may not support any compatible set of services present on a tower. This is less common today as most service is 3G and LTE and most phones support both protocols on all common frequencies.

The tower may not provide a simple large circular coverage footprint. It may be a very narrow short range wedge, another shape or a combination of shapes, or there may be obstacles between the tower and the location that degrades or prevents use. The details available on the map can help indicate this with the power, height and azimuth of the transceivers.

Further, many providers have sharing and roaming provisions which are not always obvious or indicated. For example, Bell and Telus have extensive sharing agreements across the country, where each may not have any towers in an area, but will provide direct service. Most providers have numerous roaming or extended roaming agreements where their customers can obtain service from another party where they don't have coverage. This service may be an extra charge or included.

Flanker Brands

All the large providers have so called flanker brands. Sub brand names they also provide service through. The flanker brands typically have identical or near identical coverage to their parent brand so they are not shown on the map.

Bell - Virgin Mobile, Lucky Mobile
Rogers - Fido, Chatr
Telus - Koodo, Public Mobile
Shaw/Freedom

Data Source

The map is generated from data submitted by the wireless providers to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED, formerly Industry Canada), under condition of their wireless spectrum licenses. ISED compiles the information and makes it available in their Spectrum Management System, along with information for many other spectrum licenses. The pertinent data for cellular services is filtered out of the data and modified into a format for presentation on the map.

Data Updates

ISED updates the data approximately monthly. Shortly after new data is available it is integrated into the map after some processing and quality control. The date of the last data update for the map is indicated at the bottom of the settings panel.

Missing Sites

The quality of the data provided is quite good but it is not perfect and there may be errors or omissions in what is presented on the map. Most commonly it has been noted that a site may be missing. This may be a result of a delay in providing information for a new site, a simple omission, an inactive site or some other error that originates with the provider's data, their submission to ISED, ISED's processing of the data or the processing involved to create the map. Some of these issues are corrected with the next subsequent update, others may persist much longer.

US Version

A US version of the map is not available. The FCC in the US does not require submission of tower sites or catalog all site data to make a map possible.

Contact Info

For any comments or questions please email towerlocator 'at' ertyu.org or use the 'Feedback' feature of the app.