Hello Apple Developer Team,
I am developing an iPhone application called RF Field Test for professional DAS (Distributed Antenna System) and macro cellular network technicians.
The application already supports GPS location tracking, network connection detection, and cellular speed testing.
To make it useful for professional RF field testing, I need access to real-time cellular measurements, including:
PCI (Physical Cell Identity)
Cell ID / ECI / NCI
RSRP, RSRQ, and SINR
LTE and NR frequency bands
EARFCN and NR-ARFCN
LTE / 5G NSA / 5G SA identification
Channel bandwidth
Serving and neighboring cell information
I understand that standard public Core Telephony APIs do not expose most of these measurements.
My questions are:
Is there an officially supported API, entitlement, or carrier-specific development program that provides access to these measurements?
Can an independent developer apply for this access, or must the application be developed through an authorized cellular carrier?
Would Apple's interoperability request process be appropriate for requesting these capabilities?
If these measurements are unavailable to third-party applications, is there an official recommended approach for developing professional cellular RF testing tools on iPhone?
I am looking for a legitimate, App Store-compliant solution without private APIs or unsupported methods.
Thank you for any guidance.
Here on the forums we can only discuss things that are in the public SDK, and that includes no APIs to get the information you’re looking for.
Historically there were special affordances for carrier APIs that weren’t in the public SDK. My understanding is that these have largely gone away, being replaced by public APIs that are restricted via entitlements. There may be some exceptions but, either way, it’s not something we can talk about in the context. And it probably doesn’t matter to you because you’re not working on behalf of a carrier.
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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
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