Visualizing the increase in Wi-Fi APs over time

[skydoctor]

Hi,

As part of a research study, I am trying to infer the number of new access points that were installed in a given region over time. While exploring how I can use WiGLE for this task, I see two problems:

1. How to find the timestamp of when an AP first showed up in the database?
2. Even if I have a timestamp - how to distinguish between when the AP was actually installed vs. when someone happened to have logged it while war driving.

The 2nd problem is just sort of a small assumption issue, but any ideas on how to go around the 1st one? I do understand the reasons behind the API limitations that have been put in place, and I am not implying the need for any modifications. Just wondering if there is any way to use the existing APIs to accomplish this task (inferring the evolution of no. of APs with time in a given location).

Thanks

[uhtu]

1. the "firsttime" column on the query results page
2. if an event is unobserved, did it occur? a sufficiently puissant researcher might back out MAC allocation timelines, but that is a bit silly.

-uhtu

[skydoctor]

Thanks! Except the few records which don't the firsttime field populated, I got what I was looking for.

Just to make sure, are AP records ever deleted from the database? The APs that had been once logged but are no longer functioning would also feature in the database right?

[uhtu]

very few things are static in the universe, consider also the lasttime column.
how would you know if an unobserved AP was no longer there, and why would you even consider the question?

-uhtu

[skydoctor]

Thanks for the suggestion.

Queries made through "http://wigle.net/gpsopen/gps/GPSDB/confirmquery" always return with empty "lasttime" field. However, response for queries through "http://wigle.net/gpsopen/gps/main/confirmquery/" seem to have that field populated. The problem with the 2nd url is that the number of entries per response is limited to 100 instead of 1000 for the 1st one.

An example query I used is: http://wigle.net/gpsopen/gps/GPSDB/conf ... imple=true

Do I need to do something differently in order to get lasttime using GPSDB?

[uhtu]

for a totally different output, you need to look at different columns
lastupdt has what you're looking for there.

-uhtu