User:SherbetS/Communication Tagging Guide
Introduction
This is an unofficial guide for tagging communication infrastructure that you may run into while mapping.
This guide is written mainly for The United States, but some of the suggestions still apply worldwide.
At this time, this guide is incomplete. Please check back later.
The problem with the English language
For most people, communication infrastructure boils down to one phrase: “Radio Tower.”
This is problematic because many structures that are referred to are not towers, and may not even broadcast Radio Frequencies.
Even on other maps, structures such as cellular masts are still referred to as a Radio tower. This isn’t helpful for a mapper that is disinterested in Studying the wiki extensively to try and make sense of the complex communication tagging scheme.
This guide explains a way to properly refer to communication infrastructure in OpenStreetMap.
Masts
Masts are by far the most common and widespread structure for communications. They come in many shapes, and can range from rather short to extremely tall. They can have a thin, pole structure, similar to a power pole, or a wide, three or four point truss structure Similar to a larger Power Pylon.
Pole Masts
The image will be used as an example to show the proper method of tagging Pole style masts.
First use Man_made=Mast to specify that it is a mast.
You can stop here if you aren’t interested in adding detail to every mapped mast. But like anything in OpenStreetMap, you may add as much detail as you want.
For further detail you can use
tower:construction=freestanding
communication:mobile_phone=yes
Note: you can replace the above with the appropriate values for any structures you find in the field.
operator=*
ref=*
height=*
ele=*
Truss masts
Truss masts can be very problematic, their wider body can be more deceptive than a single pole mast because a mapper might not think that they are a mast because they don’t match the description on the mast wiki page. They do not match the first description of the page, but they still fall under the same category.
Tagging
The process is the same, but the values will be different.
Mandatory tags:
Optional tags:
communication:mobile_phone=yes
operator=*
ref=*
height=*
ele=*
Possible Mistakes
Tower:type is used for masts as well as towers.
Exclude communication=line
Many Communication masts are accidentally added by JOSM users using the preset. Make sure that it is not a communication tower before replacing/deleting!