Google maps locating me in the wrong city

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geoffwnz

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#319097 21-Mar-2025 18:22

Unsure if this is a provider issue or something to do with my system, but I swapped (finally) from HFC to fibre this week. Smooth transition which was nice.

However, just trying to search something based on location on my PC that's hard wired to the router and is very much in Upper Hutt and location based sites are saying that I'm in Papatoetoe.

This includes doing a speed test where it points me at Auckland based servers as the "closest".

I'm feeling very dumb right now, but I'd like my non mobile PC to be at least showing in the correct region, if not the correct city.

Any suggestions on what I need to tweak to sort this?

To further confuse the issue, my laptop (on WiFi, same router) says I'm in Miramar and the phone, connected to my WiFi says I'm at home.

One out of three ain't bad right?

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freitasm

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#3356138 21-Mar-2025 20:33

Geolocation on desktop is quite flakey. There are lots of things involved. It is better or mobile devices dua to cell site and GPS information and ok on laptop devices connected via WiFi.

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Oblivian

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#3356139 21-Mar-2025 20:33

One of the 3 has a GNS sensor built into it with GPS satellite and cellular data.

The others don't. Or have other location methods (windows permissions can control this)

No you can't change it on things other than mobiles. Set your home as a home location. Maps will prioritise the location.

ISPs buy blocks of IP ranges. Not all of them are allocated to specific regions but known endpoints of the ISP.

https://www.digitalelement.com/resources/guides/guide-to-ip-geolocation/#:~:text=One%20piece%20of%20information%20that,approximate%20location%20of%20the%20device.

geoffwnz

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#3356140 21-Mar-2025 20:38

I did have a look at the Windows location settings and seem to be able to set my location, so I've done that and a reload of the maps on the browsers seemed to be happier to locate me at home. That'll do as a fix for now.

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freitasm

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#3356141 21-Mar-2025 20:39

Another piece of information. Google Maps and other providers use different methods to determine location. One of then is the background scan all phones do, looking for WiFi access points. When they find one, the phone reports these to Google (or Apple) with GPS coordinates. Eventually, those WiFi access points are correctly mapped.

This increases accuracy for devices connecting to WiFi only. With time, your laptop will get more accurate location. I assume you have a new router with the updated broadband? This will be "found" by moving phones over the next few days and weeks, increasing accuracy.

As a side note, many years ago I upgraded our router and sent the old one to a friend in Napier. For a few weeks this friend's laptop was reporting being in Wellington - because that's where Google thought this access point was supposed to be. It updated after a while.

Desktops are different cases and rely on IP addresses. Those are mostly associated with the ISP main office - I don't know of any ISP that would determine location for specific IP address - which would be a huge privacy breach, if not useless because of dynamic IP addresses and CG-NAT.

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geoffwnz

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#3356144 21-Mar-2025 20:48

Router hasn't changed. Had already recently got a new WiFi6 setup so didn't see any benefit in replacing that again so soon. Only change was what "cable" the internet now comes in on. :-)

Interestingly, setting the PC location also sorted the laptop, possibly, as mentioned, because it now understands where that WiFi router should be located.

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