Proposal:Shop=telecommunication

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Shop=telecommunication
Proposal status: Abandoned (inactive)
Proposed by: Ilias
Tagging: shop=telecommunication
Applies to:
Definition: A shop of a telecommunications company.
Statistics:

Draft started: 2025-09-03
RFC start: 2025-09-04


Proposal

This proposal aims to approve the tag shop=telecommunication to designate a shop of a telecommunications company (e.g. Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange), where you can contract a mobile plan, an Internet plan, landline service, TV packages, streaming services packages, but also buy mobile phones, computers and other electronics devices. It especially aims to create a clear boundary between shop=mobile_phone and shop=telecommunication.

Shops of telecommunication companies are currently inconsistently tagged on OSM and on the Name Suggestion Index. The values are split between shop=mobile_phone and shop=telecommunication. This is bad for data consumers and mappers working across multiple countries, where shops having the same offering will have different tags. This proposal aims to to properly define the difference between shop=mobile_phone and shop=telecommunication, and a proper tagging scheme for shops of telecommunications companies.

Defining a clear difference between both tags

To approve usage of shop=telecommunication to be used striclty for shops of telecommunications companies, we need to define a clear difference between this tag and shop=mobile_phone.

Current definitions

On shop=mobile_phone, we can read:

  • A shop that primarily sells mobile phones and accessories.

On shop=telecommunication:

  • shop=telecommunication is used for shops of telecommunications companies (telecommunications service providers), which sell mobile network or landline contracts, prepaid SIM cards and/or contracts for television and wired internet. Some shops also sell mobile phones, tablet computers, accessories or other hardware. Similar tags: shop=mobile_phone: a shop that primarily sells mobile phones; may also sell mobile network contracts, often from several providers.

Both definitions are clearly overlapping, unclear, and lack a proper differenciation. Defining the first tag as "selling mobile phones, may also sell mobile network contracts", and the second one as "selling mobile network contracts, may also sell mobile phones" simply brings confusion.

New definitions

Both definitions would be clearly redefined. The pages would be reworked and would explicitly mention the difference with each other.

  • shop=mobile_phone would be redefined as:

A shop that ONLY sells mobile phones and related accessories (e.g. prepaid SIM cards, phones cases, screen protectors, chargers). Not to be confused with shop=telecommunication.

Mobile phone shop in Singapore
  • shop=telecommunication would be redefined as:

A shop of a telecommunications company, where you can contract mobile plans, Internet plans, landline service, TV packages, streaming services packages, but also buy mobile phones, computers, and other electronic devices. If a shop does NOT belong to a telecommunications company, does NOT contract any of the above and STRICTLY sells mobile phones and related accessories, it should be tagged as shop=mobile_phone.

Vodafone store in the Netherlands

Rationale

shop=mobile_phone shop=telecommunication

The reason for this inconsistency in tagging is a mix between which tag came first, historical usage, and which tag the Name Suggestion Index started by using for these shops.

Which tag came first

If we take a look at OSM Tag History, we can see that shop=mobile_phone appeared in 2010, while shop=telecommunication appeared only 10 years later in 2020. This means that during 10 years, there was a lack of a clear tag for shops of telecommunications companies. Users had to do with the closest tag available which was shop=mobile_phone, even though this tag strictly designates a store which specializes in selling mobile phones.

Role of the NSI

The NSI appeared in 2017 and started to become integrated with OSM editors around 2018. It unfortunately also had no choice but to use shop=mobile_phone. This meant that thousands of telecom shops on OSM would be standardized and tagged as such.

Users would then simply type the name of the telecom provider, where they would find a ready, available preset, with the company's logo and a shop=mobile_phone tag.

On the NSI, there are currently 94 brands using shop=telecommunication, while there are 139 using shop=mobile_phone. With most operators having hundreds of stores in each country, having a correct and approved tagging scheme is paramount.

Addressing concerns

  • Shops that mainly sell mobile phones: In some countries, the main telecom providers operate shops that mainly sell mobile phones, so some users tend to prefer tagging them as shop=mobile_phone (see discussion on Russia, Sweden and UK communities). Nevertheless, tagging these stores as such gives an incomplete and misleading picture, since the defining function of the shop is not only selling phones but also providing a wide range of telecommunications services, such as Internet plans, streaming packages, etc., on top of selling mobile phones. shop=telecommunication captures the full scope of these shops, including selling mobile phones. Moreover, these shops not only sell mobile phones, but also tablets, laptops, smartwatches, and many electronics and related accessories. Tagging them as shop=mobile_phone would once again be plain wrong.
  • office=telecommunication: what we're talking about are still stores, not offices. However, over 9,000 elements are tagged with both this tag and shop=mobile_phone. This is simply wrong because office=telecommunication is defined as a corporate office of a telecommunications company, e.g. T-Mobile Headquarters. These items would be retagged as simply shop=telecommunication.

Previous discussions

There have been countless discussions, on the community forum and on the NSI repo, about changing a specific brand from shop=mobile_phone to shop=telecommunication, but never an actual structured proposal.

I started by asking country by country about retagging their local operators. The French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Dutch communities approved the change, while the Swedish and Russian communities refused (see Addressing concerns). Some didn't give a clear answer. But a UK user (rightly) noted that a better approach would be to simply go through an actual approval of the tag.

Forum discussions

NSI discussions on Github

Comments

Please comment on the forum thread, or on the discussion page.

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