Introduction

Cell towers are ubiquitous. Their number is increasing at an incredible pace. Within short cycles newer and faster wireless standards sweep the market and demand change in infrastructure. While there are no apparent strings attached, as health studies show, awareness of this integral part of our cityscapes is alarmingly low. Both in plain sight and still invisible, mobile antennas and their inner workings are a manifestation of how technology left many people behind. We are "always on". But we don't care how.

+ Zoom in - Zoom Out C Center map Use the icons on the upper left or double-tap the map to zoom. When zoomed in, labels for each tower will appear. Click these for details.

The map

With data gathered from the Bundesnetzagentur, the map illustrates all 11.500 mobile antennas inside the "Berliner Ring" in the form of a heatmap. The "hotter" the area, the denser it is populated by antennas that sit on towers in varying numbers. Explore!

Red indicates >45 antennas per tower at maximum zoom.

Win-Win Situation

LTE, an acronym for Long-Term Evolution, provides nearly ten times the speed of the average wired connection in german households. It will be the de-facto standard in the coming years. But the just-announced fifth generation (5G) of wireless delivery will outperform LTE thousandfold. Neelie Kroes, digital adviser to the European Commission, invests heavily in the new standards. For obvious reasons: Germany made in excess of 50 billion € selling off UMTS-licenses. A steady source of revenue.

GSM GSM/EDGE UMTS UMTS/HSDPA LTE 800 LTE Older standards are dwarfed by LTE, which provides a theoretical speed of 150 Mbit/s.

Crowdsourcing

While bulk data about providers is not available to the public, we encourage you to exercise your right to request up to 5 certificates and send them in if you live inside the Berliner Ring. This will enable us to add field intensity and market distribution to the topology.

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