Submit WiFi location data?

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#1

Hi there,

I was wondering if these days there is any means to submit the WiFi location data to MLS?
I used to do it with Mozilla Stumbler app on Android 9, but as I understand it’s going to stop working after upgrade to 10 or 11 (that I’m going to do soon).

For submitting cell tower data, the Tower Collector app does pretty good job, but it cannot handle WiFi APs and not sure if the developer is interested to add that.

It would be pity to lose this opportunity.

Any other solutions out there? Or any plans/hopes for some to appear?

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#2

Hi Som,

You have listed all the collection options that I know about. New applications would be useful, that use the geosubmit API to add WiFi data with GPS locations to MLS. I do not expect Mozilla to write one this year.

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#3

Thank you John!

Well, looking at the API description has just broken another hope of mine - I am collecting the local WiFi geolocation database with LocalWifiNlpBackend on Android, and my idea was that it might be possible to upload these data to Mozilla by hand. But it seems that a single report should have two WiFi APs, and more data are actually needed in the reports than just Lat/Lon+BSSID combinations (which are stored by LocalWiFiNlpBackend)…

OK, I’ll keep submitting the cell data with Tower Collector, and hope that you in Mozilla or somebody else will write an application for WiFi APs some day.

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#4

I agree, the LocalWifiNlpBackend database export would be challenging to feed to MLS, which is expecting an observation of all the visible WiFi APs. The backend, and the newer DejaVu engine, have almost all the features needed for a stumbler however, passively monitoring APs and related locations when GPS is available. Maybe a way forward is to add a submission API to MicroG, so that users that sometimes have GPS can more easily contribute back to the online services they use, while still using the best available backends for their own geolocation needs.

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#5

I started collecting WLAN data using WiGLE WiFi. That app works on recent Android versions. Would it be possible to accept data from WiGLE or fork the app? I don’t know what the license of the data is. The free software community needs an open WLAN map to improve location accuracy. I like the MicroG idea in that regard. Thanks for the service provided.

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#6

Addendum:
As microG phases out support for NLP backends, the backend developers aren’t keen to work on adding new features -such as submitting Wi-Fi data, until they know for sure what the future holds. It may take some more time… :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

#7

I just noticed that the backend developer might be willing to write an option to export the data.

Provided that the backend developer makes it possible to export the data as required by MLS, it shouldn’t be difficult to write a script that sends the data to the MLS database, no?