Proposal talk:Cell reception
Coverage is variable
Hello, first of all, I appreciate the effort to bring some points to the discussion. The more extensive it is, the more progress we make in our mapping practices.
Mobile coverage is a really variable thing and depends on many external factors (as mentioned on the tagging mailing-list): seasons, air temperature, networks and... terminals.
If you want to get a qualified information, you should define those parameters to make several measurement comparable.
Even though, I find it really hard to map this in OSM and get a valuable information. I discourage it. It's not about how OSM is hard at mapping, it's only about how mobile coverage is hard to map Fanfouer (talk) 12:48, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't disagree with your argument, hence others have made similar on other channels. Though I will argue that as the proposal has been limited to a few recreational POIs for initial use, it limits some of the extreme factors. While yes some may have varying success at a location depending on such factors, it is unlikely for cell reception to go from a yes to a no due to such factors.
It IS likely that reception could go from a yes to a limited or a limited to a no, but this is where the community basis of OSM helps. While someone may map an areas as no reception and a mapper discovers reception at another visit, they could simply change the tag to limited for the benefit of someone in the future. Yes "limited" indicates some likelihood of service, though I think even if a user discovered there was no service it could be expected due to the inherent inclusiveness of such "external factors" into the tagging determination. Nickkatchur (talk) 23:42, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Receiving environment
Your proposal should define if you study the coverage outside (I guess yes), inside or deep inside (basements, cellars...). Fanfouer (talk) 12:48, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
This is very valid, I will specify outside in the proposal as it has been further refined to "recreational facilities" which would most likely indicate an outdoor (or outdoor based) environment. Nickkatchur (talk) 23:33, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Operators and networks
Staying in a mobile covered place is better when *your* operator made the coverage. Depending on service providers, I may be in a place covered by operator A in LTE and by the operator B in edge/gprs.
What should be the coverage value there?
I find it really hard to make a distinction between operators in OSM, not to mention virtual ones. Fanfouer (talk) 12:48, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
This is another good point, I like the idea of the data_networks tag, but maybe it's best to remove it. I see the benefit in possible having provider:data_network, but hence from other feedback it seems this would be extremely cumbersome in practice due to the shear number of providers across the world. Hence for now I will remove the data_network tag. Nickkatchur (talk) 23:35, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Mobile Reception rollout
So I have rolled out mobile_reception while on a long RV trip across the Western US, Canada and Alaska, and also some other countries over the last two years or so. There are now over a thousand tags in multiple countries.
Here is an example of color coded mobile_reception using OverPass API:
https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/21Bq
I tried to upload a screenshot but some excessive licensing check prevents me from doing so.
I recommend formalizing this tag with Wiki pages and key descriptions. I can help with this.
Kevinp2 (talk) 11:42, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hello, The values you set with this key depend on the mobile unit you used to measure, particularly for signal strength. Any other mapper with a complete different unit could encounter very different conditions as explained upside. This goes beyond Verifiability. Fanfouer (talk) 11:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)