Openstreetmap-carto: Telecom offices are with a dot instead of a specific icon

[jidanni]

We observe telecom offices are rendered with just a dot of mystery.
Blowing it up larger and larger just reveals it is indeed just a dot.

Hmmm, maybe one of

$ unicode --max 88 telephone|grep -P '^U+|^.$'
U+2121 TELEPHONE SIGN
℡
U+2315 TELEPHONE RECORDER
⌕
U+260E BLACK TELEPHONE
☎
U+260F WHITE TELEPHONE
☏
U+2706 TELEPHONE LOCATION SIGN
✆
U+1F4DE TELEPHONE RECEIVER
📞
U+1F57B LEFT HAND TELEPHONE RECEIVER
🕻
U+1F57C TELEPHONE RECEIVER WITH PAGE
🕼
U+1F57D RIGHT HAND TELEPHONE RECEIVER
🕽
U+1F57E WHITE TOUCHTONE TELEPHONE
🕾
U+1F57F BLACK TOUCHTONE TELEPHONE
🕿
U+1F580 TELEPHONE ON TOP OF MODEM
🖀

that doesn't conflict with a pay phone, would be better.

[polarbearing]

That's because offices are rendered as a dot. There is no mystery.

Listing Unicodes does not help, as they are rendered differently with different fonts:

[HolgerJeromin]

Is this a request to have an icon for telecom offices or a request to remove all generic dots?

[jidanni]

Offices are rendered with a dot?!
A cartographic first?!
Why not use some more familiar https://www.google.com/search?q=office+icon&tbm=isch
Does any of the general public know a dot means office?

The Unicodes are just suggestions.
I think other maps often just use the icon of the national telephone company as there is usually only one landline supplier per country.

[polarbearing]

The dot is being used here to generically mark the location of an entity, it is also used for shops, e.g. on lower zoom levels.

Unicodes do not work as suggestions when I see something different than you see, or I see different renderings in different applications using different font renderings.

If you want to propose a new office icon, feel free to design one that fits the requirements in this style.

[Adamant36]

I think other maps often just use the icon of the national telephone company as there is usually only one landline supplier per country.

If the icon was just a telephone, how would people know it was a telecom office versus just a usable phone or something similar? (I guess the office icon color would help, but it still seems to generic of an icon on it's own).

[jidanni]

Thus using the AT&T (or whatever local telco) logo would indicate that is is a phone shop / telco office, and not simply a phone booth (picture of a phone).

[Prince-Kassad]

If the icon was just a telephone, how would people know it was a telecom office versus just a usable phone or something similar? (I guess the office icon color would help, but it still seems to generic of an icon on it's own).

We already distinguish library and bookstore by having one be a single book and the other a stack of books (besides having amenity-brown vs. shop-purple). So I don't see any problem if the icon is sufficiently different from what we use for amenity=telephone.

[daganzdaanda]

If the office had a name=, the blue dot would not be so mysterious any more ;)
Maybe brand= might be rendered in the future, too.
BTW, what exactly is a "retail telecom office"? Is there a place like that which is not at the same time a "shop=mobile_phone"?

[kennykb]

Some places at least used to have public-facing business offices for land-line telephone service, where subscribers could make service requests, and pay their bills over the counter.

[Prince-Kassad]

BTW, what exactly is a "retail telecom office"? Is there a place like that which is not at the same time a "shop=mobile_phone"?

This really is a tagging question, but shop=mobile_phone has a too broad definition in my opinion. It is not at all obvious that a shop=mobile_phone will also offer landline and cable services. It also leaves the few companies that do not offer phones or phone contracts very isolated, which makes very little sense.

[jidanni]

My phone company has two types of shops.

• Full service centers open Monday To Friday：8:30~17:30
• Mini service centers / mobile phone shops open Monday To Sunday 11:00~21:00

https://www.cht.com.tw/en/home/cht/about-cht/business-group/store-locator

[jeisenbe]

using the AT&T (or whatever local telco) logo would indicate that is is a phone shop / telco office, and not simply a phone booth (picture of a phone).

This is not technically feasable for this style.

So far there are no icon suggestions which would work. A telephone symbol could easily be confused with a phone booth, a police phone or an emergency phone. Also we do not show specific icons for most office= features, and if we were to add them it is not clear that this would be one that is in the top tier for a specific icon.

Therefore I am closing this issue as declined for now.