Trace mobile number location and operator in India

Most of the times when you miss a call from an anonymous number, the very 1st question which pops up in your mind is: Whose call was it? I had personally came across this situation several times & tried to Google it to find some info. But I never succeeded in tracking the number. But I always knew it’s possible. How?

Due to legal safeguards may be it’s not possible to search through the operator’s database to find the owner’s name, but it’s technically possible to find out the location & operator. I had muted an idea to collect the mobile number series i.e the 1st 5 digits (MSC code) & based on that I planned to develop a software which will provide you the Location as well as the Operator. For example, if your mobile number is 99896XXXXX, the 1st 5 digits i.e 99896 is known as MSC Code. This code will identify the Location or Circle & the operator name. I Googled through to find out the details of number series in different telecom circles in India. I found the relevant information of MSC codes here in Cellular Operators Association of India website. I had a plan to develop a Web Service preferably a WCF service (Windows Communication Foundation) which will return the Location/Circle & the Operator. This could have worked as follows:

1. Enter the 10 digit mobile number.
2. The client application will substring the 1st 5 digits of the mobile number.
3. These 5 digits (MSC Code) will be send to the WCF service (input of WCF service).
4. The service will return the location & operator name based on the input.
5. You have successfully tracked the mobile number location & operator.

Please Note, As far as tracking the location of mobile number is concerned, For 4 metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai) you’ll specifically get the corresponding city name, for others you have to content yourself with the name of the state.

I was sure this kind of web application wasn’t available on the internet till few months back. Un/fortunately, few days back while working on my project I came across 2 websites which provided the same info. I abandoned the project. There’s no point in re-inventing the wheel again. You can visit any of the following URL’s to find the Location & Operator. Obviously this doesn’t solve your problem of knowing the mobile number owner before giving a call back but as they say something is better than nothing!

• A simple mobile number tracker
• Google map based mobile number tracker

So, how was it? Any suggestions regarding any similar service which we can develop? Or like everyone else you believe everything is there in Google search?