I commute to work and the guy in front of me put this up. While this was up, he was watching something on this phone and had headphones on. At one moment on phone in the suitcase seemed to turn on, displaying the SAMSUNG Galaxy symbol. Nothing more happened.
Answer: If I had to guess they’re probably recording network reception for a number of different carriers to create a coverage map. Similar to those cars with a bunch of weird antennas, but more portable.