Afghan Wireless understands that having access to consistent and reliable coverage is a high priority for mobile users. For this reason, the company is proud to support OpenSignal, an innovative app that provides real-time information on cell phone signal strength. Read on to learn more about how OpenSignal can help you to stay connected.
What is the OpenSignal app?
The OpenSignal app was inspired by one simple goal: to help mobile users avoid the daily inconvenience of a poor signal. As the world’s first real-time map of cell phone coverage data, the app shows users where to obtain a better connection, helps to identify free WiFi hotspots nearby, and gives information on which network typically offers the best coverage and performance in the area. The app is free to download from the App Store. To date, it has been downloaded more than 15 million times in over 200 countries, making it the world’s most popular network messaging app.
How does it work?
The OpenSignal app is the next big step in crowdsourced, on-device data: a phenomenon made possible by the incredible range of sensors found in today’s mobile phones, which have the capacity to monitor everything from the temperature to the location of nearby Bluetooth beacons. When the OpenSignal app is downloaded on to a user’s phone, the app harnesses the data that is continually being received by the phone’s sensors and uses these millions of measurements—taken indoors or outdoors, in the city or in the country, from real devices under conditions of normal usage—to create a comprehensive picture of network performance as it’s experienced by people.
Due to this crowdsourcing method, the app can measure a network’s reliability and availability, as well as how a signal and speed can change in particular areas over a longer time frame, in a way that isn’t possible through simply drive testing, or simulating, the user experience with a limited sample of devices and locations. By running constantly in the background at a low power level, the app notes changes in network conditions as they occur and performs dozens of individual tests, generating a rich data set that can help create a highly detailed picture of network experience.
Consumers using the app can check the central dashboard, which features a real-time signal pointer to direct users to better signal locations and recommendations for the best WiFi hotspots in the area. Thanks to its massive WiFi database—the world’s largest—the app can be used to find free WiFi all over the world, with over 800 million hotspots to draw from. A single click of the app can also show users both the mobile operator offering the best coverage in a particular area and the true coverage level offered by each operator. Finally, the app features a speedtest that users can use to find out the real performance level of a current connection.
What about privacy?
As a collector of crowdsourced data donated by users, OpenSignal takes privacy very seriously. Only data related to network performance is recorded, and no personally identifying information is shared with third parties. Location or network diagnostic information provided by individual users is used to create aggregated data sets to properly operate or improve OpenSignal services. Any information shared with partners or third parties is done so anonymously, statistically, or in an aggregated form. OpenSignal also implements numerous systems, applications, and procedures to effectively secure personal information and minimize the risk of loss or unauthorized use of such information.
What else does OpenSignal offer?
OpenSignal is not only a valuable resource for individual consumers, but it’s an important tool for the wireless industry as a whole—including mobile operators, industry analysts, telecoms regulators, and large companies—as well as for government or academic statistical departments.
In addition to the OpenSignal app, the company publishes a wide range of public reports on the quality of mobile networks that aim to increase transparency and improve performance for the wireless industry as a whole. Reports include detailed analyses of the state of mobile networks in many different countries, as well as pieces on specific topical issues, such as the privacy implications of mobile sensor networks or the relationship between screen size and data usage. Global cell coverage maps are available for over 200 countries. Visitors to the OpenSignal website can click on the name of a country to see a coverage map and find specifics on the country’s major mobile operators, including the average upload and download speeds, types of networks used, and the average network reliability.
Available data intelligence collected via the OpenSignal app is carefully analyzed by the company’s team of big-data scientists and is subject to thorough quality assurance procedures. The result is high-quality data that has been used in over 100 published academic papers to date, including a number of papers directly authored by OpenSignal.