Google Cell Tower Location API: Changed? - reverse-geocoding

Question

For the last few months I've been finding the locations of cell towers as we use their cellid and areaid, based on the following code:
public class GoogleService
{
public GoogleCell GetCellInfo(string lac, string mnc, string mcc, string cellID)
{
try
{
HttpWebRequest myReq = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("https://www.google.com/loc/json");
myReq.Method = "POST";
myReq.ContentType = "application/jsonrequest";
string postData = "{\"cell_towers\": [{\"location_area_code\": \"" + lac + "\", \"mobile_network_code\": \"" + mnc + "\", \"cell_id\": \"" + cellID + "\", \"mobile_country_code\": \"" + mcc + "\"}], \"version\": \"1.1.0\", \"request_address\": \"true\"}";
myReq.ContentLength = postData.Length;
StreamWriter stOut = new StreamWriter(myReq.GetRequestStream(), System.Text.Encoding.ASCII);
stOut.Write(postData);
stOut.Close();
HttpWebResponse webresponse;
webresponse = (HttpWebResponse)myReq.GetResponse();
Encoding enc = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
StreamReader loResponseStream = new StreamReader(webresponse.GetResponseStream(), enc);
string Response = loResponseStream.ReadToEnd();
loResponseStream.Close();
webresponse.Close();
GoogleCell Mycell = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<GoogleCell>(Response);
return Mycell;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
string strErr = ex.Message;
if (ex.InnerException != null)
{
strErr += ": " + ex.InnerException.Message;
}
MessageBox.Show(strErr);
return new GoogleCell();
}
}
}
public class GoogleCell
{
public GoogleCell() { }
public GoogleCell(string mnc, string mcc, string lac)
{
this.Mnc = mnc;
this.Mcc = mcc;
this.Lac = lac;
}
public string Mnc { get; set; }
public string Mcc { get; set; }
public string Lac { get; set; }
public string CellID { get; set; }
public Location location { get; set; }
public class Location
{
public Location() { }
public Location(string latitude, string longitude)
{
this.latitude = latitude;
this.longitude = longitude;
}
public string latitude { get; set; }
public string longitude { get; set; }
public Address address { get; set; }
public class Address
{
public Address() { }
public string country { get; set; }
public string country_code { get; set; }
public string city { get; set; }
public string region { get; set; }
public string street { get; set; }
public string street_number { get; set; }
public string postal_code { get; set; }
}
}
The code worked flawlessly until sometime between one and two weeks ago, when it started returning error 400: Bad Request when it does the GetRequestStream().
My code hasn't changed.
I can't find any record of the API's parameters changing.
What else could be going on? This uses Google Gears, which has been deprecated for a while now, but I can't find any doco on a replacement that finds cell towers.
any ideas?

Answer 1

I ended up kicking Google to the curb and using OpenCellID:
public CellTowerPOCO GetCellInfo_OpenCellID(string lac, string mnc, string mcc, string cellID)
{
try
{
HttpWebRequest myReq = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(string.Format("http://www.opencellid.org/cell/get?mcc={0}&mnc={1}&cellid={2}&lac={3}",mcc,mnc,cellID,lac));
HttpWebResponse webresponse;
webresponse = (HttpWebResponse)myReq.GetResponse();
//Encoding enc = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
StreamReader loResponseStream = new StreamReader(webresponse.GetResponseStream());
string Response = loResponseStream.ReadToEnd();
loResponseStream.Close();
webresponse.Close();
CellTowerPOCO Mycell = new CellTowerPOCO();
XmlDocument xdoc = new XmlDocument();
xdoc.LoadXml(Response);
Mycell.location.latitude = xdoc.ChildNodes[1].FirstChild.Attributes["lat"].Value;
Mycell.location.longitude = xdoc.ChildNodes[1].FirstChild.Attributes["lon"].Value;
Mycell.Mcc = mcc;
Mycell.CellID = cellID;
Mycell.Mnc = mnc;
//MessageBox.Show(xdoc.ChildNodes[0].InnerText);
return Mycell;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
string strErr = ex.Message;
if (ex.InnerException != null)
{
strErr += ": " + ex.InnerException.Message;
}
MessageBox.Show(strErr);
return new CellTowerPOCO();
}
}