CellWatch

An open-source cellular network measurement suite

Please see the FCC Public Notice on CellWatch here

CellWatch is an open-source cellular network measurement suite created by researchers and developers at Georgia Tech, UC Santa Barbara, and Michigan State. It includes several components:

• An Android app capable of taking speed test measurements that comply with the FCC’s requirements for challenging providers’ coverage claims or for use without reporting to the FCC. Final FCC certification is pending (Oct 2025).
• A data portal allowing public access to aggregate, anonymous data collected by the app.
• A community coordination tool (in development) to help communities organize measurement campaigns, such as to produce cognizable challenges to providers’ claims of coverage or to create local coverage maps.
• A prediction engine (in development) capable of synthesizing multiple datasets, such as Ookla, OpenCellID, and CellWatch data, to predict quality of coverage in a given area.

CellWatch development is currently ongoing. The Android app is available on the Google Play Store. An iOS compatible app is under development. The CellWatch Android app is under review for use in the FCC’s Broadband Data Collection (BDC) mobile challenge process and is nearing the end of that process (as of October 2025).

We’re grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation and to the National Science Foundation for funding this work.