Hi there! I’m Nuked and I’m here to talk to you about Ranlytics, a company that is trying to map America’s cell networks using mail trucks.

Cell network coverage maps have always been dubiously accurate in the US, and even the ones released by the FCC in 2021 come with a ton of asterisks. That’s why Ranlytics is hoping to make a much more accurate picture by attaching equipment to some of the mail trucks that are already driving to many locations in the US to deliver parcels and letters.

According to Ranlytics’ CEO Keith Sheridan, the data collected will provide info on coverage quality “in a given town, on a given road, even at a given address”. In a press release earlier this week, Ranlytics says it’s working with the US Postal Service to measure AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon’s 4G and 5G networks in Seattle and that it’s already producing “the most detailed available” coverage maps for select areas in the city.

Building nationwide coverage maps can be difficult, even for cell carriers and the government. The FCC’s cellular maps rely on data from the carriers, which historically haven’t been the most trustworthy sources. They also don’t include information about how fast those networks will be at any given location, and they currently only show information for LTE networks — a big limitation in the age of 5G.

According to Sheridan, the detailed data Ranlytics collects could help carriers diagnose and optimize their networks, in ways even their own data couldn’t. He says that USPS vehicles repeating routes several days of the week lets it track coverage changes over time, finding both places where coverage doesn’t exist and where there is coverage but a lackluster user experience.

Ranlytics has an agreement with the USPS to “go beyond Seattle” but it won’t do so unless customers like government agencies or carriers are interested in data for other areas. As for rural areas, Sheridan says the company’s ultimate goal is to “cover as much of the country as possible, if not the entire country”.

Gathering data in rural regions is “critical, as that’s where the problems of poor coverage are greatest. Data about internet availability in less densely populated places is essential for addressing the digital divide that exists between places that have internet good enough to work or learn from home and those that don’t.

Ranlytics’ approach could have potential limits — for example, equipment attached to USPS vehicles will obviously only gather data on roads and where mail is delivered — that could exclude large swaths of land like national parks or rural homes where the mail may not be delivered directly to the home.

Sheridan says that in other countries Ranlytics has worked on ways to collect data that “compliment where the postal vehicles travel” and that the devices could be attached to all sorts of vehicles if need be. So while mapping the entire country could take a while, Ranlytics is taking steps towards making sure they can get as close as possible.