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A mobile phone can carry out power measurements on the frequency currently in use, on UMTS neighbour frequencies and on GSM frequencies. It sends the results to the network on the current link. A new link is established to the neighbour cell that offers the best radio link quality.

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Mobile phones perform measurements for determining link quality in a radio network and then send the results to the network as UE measurement reports. These reports provide vital information for dynamic network planning and the distribution of resources at the radio interface (radio resource management). The measurements and the mode of signalling are defined in the 3GPP specifications. Mobile phones have to be tested to verify this functionality and the stipulated measurement accuracy. A mobile phone measures important characteristics such as the power on the frequency currently in use (intra-frequency measurements), on UMTS neighbour frequencies (inter-frequency measurements) and on GSM frequencies (inter-RAT measurements; RAT: radio access technology). These measurements are used to determine which neighbour cell offers the best radio link quality; a link is then set up to this cell.

During signalling, it is also possible to query the current transmit power of the mobile phone, the timing of its transmit and receive signals, and the block error ratio (BLER) of a data channel. To prepare for handover between UMTS cells, the mobile phone can determine the frame timing of its current link and of its target cell.

How can we read the data that come out of the mobile phone using an android app? how can we read transmit power of the mobile phone device to be more specific?

Like tx level in the picture: enter image description here

Abdalltif Basher
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1 Answers1

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The interface into the telephony side of an Android device (assuming it supports telephony - i.e. not a tablet, TV STB etc) is the Android telephony API's:

You will see there are several which provide information around the strength of the signal and also the neighbouring cell strength.

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The strengths here are the received signal strength. I am not aware at the time of writing of an API which will give the transmitted power. It may be useful to note, depending on your needs, that the transmit power is usually influenced by the receive strength - if a phone is near a tower and receiving a good signal it typically does not need to use as much power to transmit to that tower, and conversely if it is a long way away it typically needs more power to reach the tower. This is just a rough principle, but depending on your application it may be useful.

Mick
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  • I've been working with telephony api for a while but what I want exactly is the data that the mobile devices carry out to a base station, such as transmit power of the phone device. – Abdalltif Basher Jan 21 '19 at 23:28
  • I can't seem to find a way to access it. – Abdalltif Basher Jan 21 '19 at 23:29
  • Yes, that is more aligned with the actual telephony part of a device - the part that speaks 'GSM' or LTE etc (or the actual 3GPP specs that correspond to these common names). That type of radio specific communication data is not usually needed by or shared with the 'app' side of the device. – Mick Jan 21 '19 at 23:46
  • BTW, if it is just for specific network testing rather than a general app, you can get dedicated client and network test equipment which will give you this data. I am guessing this is not what you want, but just in case. – Mick Jan 21 '19 at 23:49
  • Exactly, I want the app plays the network testing tool. Check the picture I added, shows that Android can read tx power level, and thats what i want. – Abdalltif Basher Jan 22 '19 at 01:27
  • I'm not sure if there is a reliable way to get that programatically, that stays working over releases, but there are some techniques here: https://stackoverflow.com/q/20248195/334402 and https://stackoverflow.com/q/9769166/334402 – Mick Jan 22 '19 at 09:44