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I am micromapping a remote campground in a national park and would like to indicate there is no cell phone reception at all at this location. Is there an OSM tag for this? I haven't found anything

asked 05 Aug '23, 21:45

NickKatchur's gravatar image

NickKatchur
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I am not aware of a tagging scheme to show lack of mobile phone service. Most of the remote areas I visit in the western US would need to be tagged for either very poor or non-existent coverage.

Actually, that is a major reason I use OSM based navigation apps as they typically have you download the maps for each state/nation before you can use them. But that prior download operation means that in use they don't require mobile phone coverage.

permanent link

answered 05 Aug '23, 22:11

n76's gravatar image

n76
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accept rate: 17%

I agree with your points, I have most of my area downloaded for times when I’m offline. Though I could see it being benefits in certain scenarios like planning out a trip and being able to prepare for limit cell service. Also, when offline being able to search for buildings/areas with cell service to be able to reach people/services.

(05 Aug '23, 22:42) NickKatchur

Generally OSM, and actually maps in general, try to map what is there. Not what is not there. We don’t map the lack of buildings or the lack of roads. We map cell towers but not that there are no cell towers. Generally the detection of areas without a feature is done by looking at the map data as seeing where things are sparse.

(06 Aug '23, 00:07) n76

I see these similar to that of access tags. We don’t specifically make areas that are inaccessible, but we do mark roads as private, vehicle traffic only. I think it would logically make sense to mark cell service in a similar way, while a significant portion (of at least the US) has cell service, it would be extremely valuable to be able to mark some area tags with a cell service tag.

There is definitely value in being able to mark additional info even if it’s not valuable to your use case.

(06 Aug '23, 00:39) NickKatchur

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question asked: 05 Aug '23, 21:45

question was seen: 708 times

last updated: 06 Aug '23, 00:48

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum