Proposal:Cable landing station

Cable Landing Station
Proposal status:	Draft (under way)
Proposed by:	Trailrunner13
Tagging:	man_made=cable_landing_station
Applies to:
Definition:	A facility where submarine telecommunications cables terminate on land.
Statistics:
Draft started:	2026-03-07

Problem Statement

In general, tags available for telecommunications infrastructure is relatively thin when considering it's real world variety. The case I am focused on in this proposal are locations known as Cable Landing Stations (CLS): facilities where submarine telecoms cables terminate when they return to shore. It's core functions are:

1. terminating the optical network (transitioning the network from submarine to terrestrial technology) and interconnecting the submarine network with terrestrial networks
2. supplying highly reliable, high voltage DC electricity to the submarine cable power submerged optical network repeater devices

The most obvious existing tags for this location are:

1. building=yes or building=service + telecom=exchange
2. building=yes or building=service + telecom=data_center

TL;DR: exchange and data_center are not accurate representation of this building's function. Read on for more detail or jump down to Proposal.

In telecom, an exchange has two definitions:

1. A telephone switching center (also called a central_office (CO) or Public Exchange) which is a building containing equipment called a "circuit switch" (or just "switch")
2. A geographic area defined by a telecoms operator as part of a broader network architecture

The term exchange goes back to the origins of telephone networks. Today, with modern mobile and VoIP networks having largely replaced copper networks, the exchange and circuit switch as logical or physical objects are nearly extinct. Since a CLS has traffic interconnection... what might also be called traffic exchange... one can argue exchange is the right tag, but the historic exchange definition belongs to (and was only ever relevant for) copper networks. Please see this Comment on this Post: Submarine Telecommunications Cable Landing Stations

As for data_center, the very words imply computer servers, storage and other “IT equipment” with internal IP / ethernet networking being a supporting function and optical networking simply a byproduct of the site needing external connectivity. A CLS is strictly a network interconnect point: other than for systems dedicated to the CLS function, it would be unusual to install any IT equipment this location. For those that know this infrastructure, having a CLS inside a data center building is increasingly common, but the CLS function itself has not changed (i.e., it’s not data center “stuff” going on at a CLS). There's also strong argument that telecom=data_center should really be building=data_center, but we'll leave that for another proposal.

Proposal

Add a new tag: man_made=cable_landing_station

Cable landing stations are often dedicated stand-alone buildings very near the beach where the cable lands, thus are usually mapped by drawing an outline around the building area and adding man_made=cable_landing_station.

If a cable landing station is colocated in a telecom=data_center, (or some other shared building=*) use a node tagged with man_made=cable_landing_station to mark the cable landing station's position within the larger structure.

telecom=cable_landing_station is another potential option, but the telecom=* key space seems to be aimed more at copper network objects. Ideally, the community would be able step back and rationalize telecoms infrastructure tags that are currently spread across telecom=*, communication=* and man_made=* into a consolidated structure (plus some alignment with seamark:type=cable_submarine), but there may not be interest to do so.

Rationale

cable_landing_station is an apt, telecom industry standard term with it's unique function recognized by many outside the industry including local and national government stakeholders (e.g., regulators, environmental agencies, local goverment planners, etc.)

Tagging

Cable landing stations are often dedicated stand-alone buildings very near the beach where the cable lands, thus are usually mapped by drawing an outline around the building area and adding man_made=cable_landing_station.

If a cable landing station is colocated in a telecom=data_center, (or some other shared building=*) use a node tagged with man_made=cable_landing_station to mark the cable landing station's position within the larger structure.

Use the following tagging to describe a cable landing station:

Key	Value	Comment	Recommendation
man_made=*	cable_landing_station	Site function	Mandatory
building=*	service	Associate the station with a dedicated stand-alone building	Recommended
operator=* name=* addr:=*	<text>	The station's name (e.g., Ocean Beach CLS); operator (e.g., Telecoms Company, Inc.); and address	Optional
landuse=* utility=*	industrial telecom	If the building sits on its own land area , consider tagging the site boundary as well	Recommended

Examples

1. https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1125255454
2. https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/849866087

Impact on Data Consumers

No expected impact to data consumers or rendering: this is a new tag.

Features/Pages affected

No expected impact to existing features or pages: this is a new tag.

External discussions

1. https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/submarine-telecommunications-cable-landing-stations/142078/

Comments

Please comment on the discussion page.