Proposal:Cable Landing Station - OpenStreetMap Wiki

Proposal:Cable Landing Station - OpenStreetMap Wiki
Proposal
Cable Landing Station
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Contents
Proposal:Cable Landing Station
1.1
Problem Statement
1.2
Proposal
1.3
Rationale
1.4
Tagging
1.4.1
Tag Table
1.5
Examples
1.6
Impact on Data Consumers
1.7
Features/Pages affected
1.8
External discussions
1.9
Comments
1.10
Appendix
1.10.1
Original Proposal
1.10.2
Impact on Data Consumers if
telecom
facility
structure adopted
1.10.3
Features/Pages affected if
telecom
facility
structure adopted
1.11
Voting
Proposal:Cable Landing Station
The Feature Page for this
approved
proposal is located at
Tag:telecom=cable_landing_station
Cable Landing Station
Proposal status
Approved
active
Proposed by:
Trailrunner13
Tagging:
telecom
cable_landing_station
Applies to:
Definition:
A facility where submarine telecommunications cables terminate on land.
Statistics:
Draft
started:
2026-03-07 00:00:00 (UTC)
RFC
start:
2026-03-16 23:59:59 (UTC)
Vote
start:
2026-04-01 00:00:00 (UTC)
Vote end:
2026-04-14 23:59:59 (UTC)
Problem Statement
This proposal covers Cable Landing Stations (CLS): locations where submarine telecoms cables terminate when they return to shore. Because a submarine cable is unique (it contains both optical fiber and a copper electrical conductor), terrestrial networks don't have sites quite like the CLS which combines SLTE (specialty long reach coherent DWDM, muxes and add / drop equipment) and PFE (high voltage DC electrical equipment to power optical amplifiers laying on the seabed). The CLS's core functions are:
House the SLTE which terminates the optical network (transitioning the network from submarine to terrestrial technology) and interconnecting the submarine network with terrestrial networks
House the PFE which supplies highly reliable electricity to the submarine cable to power submerged optical network amplifier devices
The most obvious existing tags for this location are:
building
yes
or
building
service
telecom
exchange
building
yes
or
building
service
telecom
data_center
TL;DR:
exchange
and
data_center
are not accurate representation of the CLS's function. Read on for more detail or jump down to
Proposal
In telecom, an
exchange
has two definitions:
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")
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 is only relevant for) copper networks. See this
Comment
As for
data_center
, the very words imply data storage devices, computer servers 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 an optical network termination and interconnect point: other than for systems dedicated to the CLS function, it would be unusual to install IT equipment at 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 be formally migrated to
building
data_center
(a tag that's in the wild, but not found on
building
=*
), but we'll leave that for another proposal.
Proposal
Add a new tag:
telecom
cable_landing_station
applicable to
area
or
node
Rationale
cable_landing_station
is an apt, telecom industry standard term with its unique function recognized by many outside the industry including government stakeholders; e.g., national regulators, state / province environmental agencies, local government planners, etc.
Tagging
Cable landing stations are often dedicated stand-alone buildings very near the beach where a cable lands, thus are usually mapped by drawing an outline around the
building
service
area
, then one would add
telecom
cable_landing_station
to the building.
If a cable landing station is colocated within a
telecom
data_center
, (or some other shared
building
=*
) use a
node
tagged with
telecom
cable_landing_station
to mark the cable landing station's approximate position within the larger structure; e.g., a room or suite in the
building
=*
Tag Table
Use the following tagging to describe a cable landing station:
Key
Value
Comment
Recommendation
telecom
=*
cable_landing_station
Telecom structure type / function
Mandatory
In combination with...
building
=*
utility
=*
service
telecom
If a dedicated stand-alone building, associate the station with that 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
(Disused)
(Active)
Verizon_Hillsboro_Cable_Landing_Station_-_Oregon.JPG
: Verizon Data Center at Hillsboro, Oregon, USA which is host to multiple CLS facilities
ACE%27s_Duynefontein_landing_station.jpg
: Stand-alone CLS at Duynefontein, South Africa for the ACE cable system
Greenland_Connect_Nuuk_Landing_Point.jpg
: Stand-alone CLS at Nuuk, Greenland for the Greenland Connect and Greenland Connect North cable systems
Impact on Data Consumers
No expected impact to data consumers or rendering: this is a stand-alone tag.
Features/Pages affected
No expected impact to existing features or pages: this is a stand-alone tag.
External discussions
Comments
Please comment on the
Discussion page
Appendix
The content in this Appendix section has been retained for historical context and is not part of this Proposal:
Original Proposal
Add a new tag:
man_made
cable_landing_station
applicable to
area
or
node
Alternatively, assuming
telecom
=*
is an appropriate home for this object, perhaps something like this would be better:
telecom
facility
facility
cable_landing_station
This idea comes from an excellent community suggestion to follow patterns from
man_made
pipeline
and
power
=*
pipeline
substation
substation
=*
power
substation
substation
=*
Currently the
telecom
=*
key space seems to be aimed more at copper network objects, but if optical networks can be accommodated,
cable_landing_station
would likely be easier to discover under
telecom
=*
than under
man_made
=*
. Additionally, this scheme would allow for easy extension to other common optical network facility types like:
facility
in-line_amplifier
facility
point_of_presence
facility
internet_exchange_point
facility
carrier_hotel
Note: "facility" might not be the best word since it conjures the idea of a building / structure, so "function" or another word may be a better choice. Or introduce a sub-key like
telecom:function
=*
(e.g.,
telecom:function
cable_landing_station
).
Including combination sites; e.g.,
facility
point_of_presence;carrier_hotel;internet_exchange_point
Impact on Data Consumers if
telecom
facility
structure adopted
If
telecom
facility
facility
cable_landing_station
is the best solution, the following should likely change:
telecom
exchange
(~25,000 OSM objects) becomes
telecom
facility
facility
exchange
and icon rendering would need to be updated
telecom
data_center
(~4,000 OSM objects) becomes
telecom
facility
facility
data_center
Features/Pages affected if
telecom
facility
structure adopted
If
telecom
facility
facility
cable_landing_station
is the best solution, the following should likely change:
Voting
Voting closed
Voting on this proposal has been closed.
It was
approved
unanimously
with
12 votes for.
approve
this proposal. --
Zimtschnecke
talk
) 17:30, 1 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. --
PizzaTreeIsland
talk
) 20:14, 1 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. --
Fizzie41
talk
) 05:36, 2 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. LGTM --
Assanges
talk
) 07:13, 2 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal.
Cyrille37
talk
) 08:37, 2 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. --
Dieterdreist
talk
) 08:29, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. Looks good to me - thanks for sorting this! I'll get it added to
Open Infrastructure Map
once it's approved. --
Russss
talk
) 10:42, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. --
Pogregoire
talk
) 14:45, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. --
WalkerB
talk
) 02:21, 8 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. --
Fanfouer
talk
) 15:27, 8 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. --
Ibanez
talk
) 13:36, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
approve
this proposal. --
Aharvey
talk
) 23:52, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
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