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Johannes33
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google maps gives me wrong country when using wifi.

Sat Apr 01, 2017 6:13 pm

Hi all.
I have a mikrotik rb3011 with a unifi ap ac lite connected. The ap has a setting for sweden, on the rb I set sweden stockholm as time zone. but when one of our mobile android phones get connected it shows that we are in poland when using google maps.
Any suggestions?
 
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shaoranrch
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Re: google maps gives me wrong country when using wifi.

Sat Apr 01, 2017 8:21 pm

Hello,

Your "issue" has nothing to do with the RB3011 nor the AP:

1.- The AP setting is for establishing the AP limits in terms of frequency and EIRP as per the country selected
2.- The clock setting is for setting the RB3011 local timezone so it has a proper time configured

None of these settings are seen by any device you connect it to, nor have any impact on how certain location services work. If google maps (or any location service for that matter) is showing you as being in a wrong place, remember you need to activate the GPS or else it'll try to locate you based on other parameters such as the IP address you're using, or the proximity to a cell tower (if connected to one), in the end it's all about how google maps is seeing you and not the settings you're commenting.
 
Johannes33
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Re: google maps gives me wrong country when using wifi.

Sun Apr 02, 2017 1:08 am

Yes. there are multiple ways to give google maps info on location. The funny thing was when I disconnected the ap the phone found the right place.
So somehow something was transmitted from the network to make it think poland instead of sweden.
So I wonder how could this be.
The ip for my isp is showing correctly if I punch it in the ip geolocation on the internet.
I bought the RB and AP from poland so I thought that perhaps there are some settings that I have not configured and should configure.

btw I read under your message that you seam to have good experience in networking. what are your choice between unifi and mikrotik AP:s.
I think unifi seems to be a little buggy. The wifi stops working sometimes for short bursts. But I run it on 22V instead of 24V since that is the poe out from my rb3011 so perhaps I'm to blame for that.
I was thinking of maby switching to some hap lite or a wap ac.
 
esaym
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Re: google maps gives me wrong country when using wifi.

Sun Apr 02, 2017 10:05 am

Location information on any webpage comes from a call to the javascript geolocation library. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/doc ... eolocation
Both mozilla and google have their own database of "known" wifi access point locations. When the location library is called, if you are connected currently to a wifi access point, it takes the highest priority. No clue why your new access point is already mapped to a different area. You can certainly change the access point's mac address and that will reset it as a known access point.

Access point mac addresses are uploaded along with gps coordinates via the google maps mobile app (and probably other google products as well) and the mobile version of the firefox web app.
 
pe1chl
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Re: google maps gives me wrong country when using wifi.

Sun Apr 02, 2017 12:47 pm

Well, as written above Google has a database of access point MAC addresses and their location.
They obtain this by driving around with cars (that also take the streetview pictures) and listening for access points and keeping the GPS location where they heard them.
However, I would be a bit surprised when they also get lists of MAC addresses from vendors or manufacturers that tell them in which country they sold AP's.
So, they only reason it would indicate Poland for your AP bought in Poland would be that it was sold before and returned, or used as a demo unit, and picked
up by a Google car driving by while it was in operation.
 
Johannes33
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Re: google maps gives me wrong country when using wifi.

Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:16 am

Thanks for the replies. I will look in to changing mac address on the unifi if it is not to hard.
But I still think it is strange. we checked the location on google maps on 2 iphones and 2 android devices, all was connected to the same wifi-network, shouldn't all have connected to the same library?.
Only one android device was showing poland. The rest was showing the correct place in sweden.
And when the ap was disconnected all showed the right place in google maps.
How can this be?
 
pe1chl
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Re: google maps gives me wrong country when using wifi.

Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:48 am

Thanks for the replies. I will look in to changing mac address on the unifi if it is not to hard.
Of course you should understand that once you change the MAC you are on your own!
It could be that your AP is next located in Venezuela, because the AP which really owns that MAC is operating there...
Also, before changing a MAC you should first understand the special meaning of the first byte.
 
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shaoranrch
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Re: google maps gives me wrong country when using wifi.

Wed Apr 05, 2017 6:36 pm

Yes. there are multiple ways to give google maps info on location. The funny thing was when I disconnected the ap the phone found the right place.
So somehow something was transmitted from the network to make it think poland instead of sweden.
So I wonder how could this be.
The ip for my isp is showing correctly if I punch it in the ip geolocation on the internet.
I bought the RB and AP from poland so I thought that perhaps there are some settings that I have not configured and should configure.

btw I read under your message that you seam to have good experience in networking. what are your choice between unifi and mikrotik AP:s.
I think unifi seems to be a little buggy. The wifi stops working sometimes for short bursts. But I run it on 22V instead of 24V since that is the poe out from my rb3011 so perhaps I'm to blame for that.
I was thinking of maby switching to some hap lite or a wap ac.
Hi,

I'm actually more of a routing engineer as in, I mainly focus on protocols and network architectures and not in the wireless field, although I do have friends that work mainly in wireless and they prefer UBNT.