How to find GSM Location area code and Cell Id for iPhone

I want to know if it is possible for iPhone to find the LAC and Cell Id as provided in the android os.

Like find the Location area code to find the location of the device etc.

I'm interested in this because I need to determine the approximate location of the device even with location services turned off.

Thanks in advance..

Solution

You can't find the LAC and Cell Id, but you can find the approximate location using CoreLocation. You can then use this to get an approximate area code if you have a suitable mapping of geo-locations to area codes; but it's unlikely that you'll be able to find a perfect mapping in any case, even if you knew the Cell Id.

The documentation for Core Location is here:

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreLocation/Reference/CoreLocation_Framework/