[maemo-developers] Neighboring Cell Towers

[From: Neal H. Walfield]

Hi,

I'm writing a context-aware application.  I want to learn the current
location using any visible cell towers and their respective signal
strength.  I realize I could use something like ACWP (Assisted
Complementary Wireless Positioning) to get the location, but that
requires network access and I don't actually care about the actual
longitude and latitude; I need an environmental fingerprint.

I can get the currently associated cell tower using the Phone.Net API,
but I have not found an interface to obtain the visible, non-connected
cell towers.  Is there one?  Do I have to interface with the SIM card
or modem directly?  If so, do you have any pointers on how I should go
about doing this?  What might be useful is the data that
/usr/libexec/location-daemon sends to, e.g., supl.nokia.com.  Any
ideas on how it harvests the data?

Thanks for your help,

Neal