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I need to get the mobile cell tower timing advance.
Is it possible on Android 2.3+ ?
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It seems that it’s not possible to retreive the timing advance…
Is it possible to know the distance between the mobile and the cell and the bearing otherwise ? I suppose I can’t use the Google hidden geolocation api in commercial application 😉
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Thanks
This is currently not implemented, and it will be a hard task because it is device-dependent.
The actual timing advance is only known by the modem, also called the baseband processor (BP). The modem is coded by the device’s constructor and thus cannot be modified, and can differ between constructors and devices.
Android runs on the application processor (AP) and uses AT commands to communicate with the BP (modem). For example, Android internally sends AT commands to the modem to send SMS, receive calls, …
The only way to get the actual timing advance would be to query the BP (with an AT command), but whether the constructors implement a specific AT command to get it is up to them. Unfortunately almost no devices implement it (only very old ones), so there is no way to get this information.