Root Wireless Network Monitoring App - Help Report Cell Phone Coverage For Crowdsourced Maps

Root Wireless wants your help in building wireless coverage maps that are more reliable than the ones you find on cell phone company websites.  Their new Network Monitoring App for Android lets you send back the wireless coverage info you're actually experiencing to their servers for crowdsourced maps.

The company believes its data could be more accurate than the radio frequency generated maps generally posted on wireless sites because it takes real-life data into account.  Just because a cell phone tower is in the area doesn't mean the coverage will be perfect.  The phone you're using, a tree in the way or other variables can affect call quality and coverage.

The app works two ways - it automatically runs in the background, sending back data to home base all by itself, or you can initiate a network test, dropped call report or the inability to connect to the network.

The aggregated info is used two ways.  You can see publicly collected anonymous info on their Root Wireless maps, but there's also a personal performance site that will be of interest to many power cell phone users and general info geeks.  There, you'll be able to log in and view maps illustrating the performance of your own phone and the performance of your service including network signal strength, upload and download speeds and connection failures. User privacy is strictly protected and the data your phone contribute is anonymously added to the aggregated pool of data that Root Wireless makes available to the public.

Already, the company has map info for 15 major US markets including New York, LA, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco.  You can see the info through CNET's website.  This new app will help add to that info.

Root Mobile conducts tests that measure signal strength, data transmission speeds, network connection failures and other performance indicators. It is noteworthy that these tests differ from data transmission speed tests conducted by others using PCs, precisely because Root Mobile is engineered to determine real-world network performance as experienced by people using smartphones – findings that for the first time objectively measure and map true, real-world performance from the perspective of the smartphone consumer. Users can choose to run a network test when they want. The application otherwise runs unnoticed in the background.

https://www.mytruecoverage.com/download/index.php

Tweet