It's important to know that the entire worldwide mobile phone network needs to have a reasonable estimation of the location of each device in order to work.
"Phone call for XYZ", "SMS for XYZ", "Establish TCP connection to XYZ". Every single device that hears this has to decode the message to the point that it can say "Nope, this isn't for me. Ignore". You've got billions of devices online at once, doing things that require messages to be sent to them. The network has to find a way to broadcast these messages to the tiniest geographic area that it possibly can, or else the whole thing breaks down. So yes, there are plenty of completely normal, standard ways that the network can make your phone say "I'm over here" without anything showing up on your screen.
(I worked at Motorola in infrastructure tech for many years)
"Phone call for XYZ", "SMS for XYZ", "Establish TCP connection to XYZ". Every single device that hears this has to decode the message to the point that it can say "Nope, this isn't for me. Ignore". You've got billions of devices online at once, doing things that require messages to be sent to them. The network has to find a way to broadcast these messages to the tiniest geographic area that it possibly can, or else the whole thing breaks down. So yes, there are plenty of completely normal, standard ways that the network can make your phone say "I'm over here" without anything showing up on your screen.
(I worked at Motorola in infrastructure tech for many years)