Is it possible to geo-locate a 3g usb stick?

Question

Everything's in the question title I guess...

I tried the findmyip kind of site, but the IP addresses for 3g usb sticks are no good to indicate the device's position...

Answer 1

It is possible yes, but it depends on what you're limitations are and how the routing of the traffic is done by the provider and what distance you're willing to consider accurate. If you're talking street-corner accuracy, then you aren't going to see that without using the device to gather information on "landmarks" (i.e. known wi-fi points, cell towers, etc.) around you and then pushing that information to you. This is how services like SkyHook work.

If your looking more for city or metro area, then it's possible for you to get good results based on how the traffic is routed to the internet. This is where data from companies like Digital Envoy who provide enterprise level geo-targeting can target a 3G device with some degree of accuracy. The accuracy suffers here b/c their data is relying on the peering point to the Internet, but it also doesn't require software on the client side device and is completely transparent to the user.

Answer 2

You need get from modem diagnostic information:

MCC, Mobile Country Code. MNC, Mobile Network Code. LAC, Location area code. CID, Cell identifier.

And signals strenght.

Depends this information you can use location API, for example http://api.yandex.ru/locator/ and get geo location based on wireless.

I dont know exactly if it exists from Google.