Telecom news

• Elliott takes stake in phone mast group Vantage ahead of possible delisting

  31-01-2023 19:30
  Activist’s move could disrupt attempt by European tower company’s new owners to buy outstanding shares
  
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• Ai Weiwei takes over the Design Museum with major exhibition

  31-01-2023 19:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The largest exhibition in the UK in nearly a decade by the artist Ai Weiwei will open at the Design Museum later this year. The museum says that this will also be the artist’s very first exhibition to focus on design and architecture, and will feature works never shown before in the UK, as well as major new pieces displayed for the very first time.
  Ai Weiwei at the Design Museum, Sept 2022 (c) Rick Pushinsky for the Design Museum
  Although most of the exhibition will be behind the pay desk
  
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• BT among firms running AI trial to create ‘intelligent sewer network’

  31-01-2023 17:22
  UK telecoms group BT is teaming up with water company Severn Trent and others on a trial to plug in AI into waste water systems to make them more efficient and predict upcoming watery problems.
  The project will see AI systems and real time monitors predict weather conditions, forecast maintenance, and control waste flow, and will allow pumping stations to operate independently.
  The full gang working on it is BT, Severn Trent, Rockwell Automation, 8 Power, Blackburn Starling, University of Exeter
  
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• More tours of disused and hidden parts of the London Underground

  31-01-2023 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  More tickets have been released for the London Transport Museum’s tours of the private and disused parts of the London Underground.
  Shepherd’s Bush station (c) LT Museum
  Four in-person tours will be on offer in February and March, including tours of the original 19th century passageways and features at Shepherd’s Bush, the bomb-proof wartime corridors concealed at the now disused Down Street station on the Piccadilly line, Euston’s secret 1960s gallery of advertising post
  
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• Continued slump in device shipments forecasted for 2023

  31-01-2023 16:00
  Analyst Gartner predicts that worldwide shipments of PCs, tablets and mobile will drop 4.4% this year, which would mean the second consecutive year of decline. But there is perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel.
  Gartner says that a depressed economic market will continue to dampen demand for devices throughout the year, and estimates global shipments of PCs, tablets and mobile phones will clock in at 1.7 billion units – a 4.4% fall. This would be the second consecutive year of declin
  
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• ECTA denounces EU’s upcoming Gigabit broadband rules

  31-01-2023 13:43
  Proposals designed to accelerate the rollout of new broadband infrastructure threaten to undo 25 years of telecoms competition, says ECTA.
  This was the assertion made on Tuesday by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA), which said it has seen a leaked draft of the European Commission’s upcoming recommendation on the regulatory promotion of Gigabit Connectivity.
  According to ECTA, the language of the draft proposals would force member states to lift or relieve whole
  
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• US reportedly cracks down further on Huawei

  31-01-2023 13:26
  The US government is moving towards a total embargo of exports to Huawei, according to leaks from the administration.
  It looks like the FT was the first to have its ear whispered into by shadowy ‘people familiar with discussions inside the administration’. This nearly always means it’s a controlled leak from the source, allowing them to float a trial balloon and test public sentiment on the matter while retaining full deniability if they change course at any stage. It’s p
  
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• The City of London and Signor Favale’s Marriage Portion Charity

  31-01-2023 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Sometimes you stumble upon an old article about an old tradition or ceremony and wonder when it’s next happening.
  Back in January 2011, I wrote aboutSignor Favale’s Marriage Portion Charity, which was set up in1882 by Italian-born Pasquale Favale, who had married a London girl, and wanted to ensure future marrying couples could afford their wedding.
  He stipulated that each year a portion of the money was to be given to “three poor, honest, young woman, natives of the City of Lo
  
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• EU suggests making tech giants pay into 5G and fibre fund

  31-01-2023 11:04
  The European Union is reportedly looking at creating a fund to help with the cost of fibre and 5G build-out, with big technology companies providing the cash.
  Brussels has been grappling with the question of whether to make – or attempt to make – the tech giants pay for the bandwidth they use for years, and despite how tricky any such move would be, the issue simply will not die. Last year the European Commission said it would launch a consultation into the matter, and that now seems
  
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• Final piles installed for west London’s new HS2 railway bridge

  31-01-2023 11:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  What will become the UK’s longest railway bridge is currently being built in west London, and they’ve reached a milestone of completing the nearly 300 piles that will be needed to hold it up. Once complete, the 2.1 mile Colne Valley Viaduct will carry HS2 trains above west London’s former gravel pits which are now a series of large lakes.
  Colne Valley Viaduct (c) HS2
  Last week, the last of 292 concrete piles that will form the foundations for the bridge was completed. The piles
  
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• Rogers and Shaw push back merger deadline again

  31-01-2023 10:54
  Rogers and Shaw have once again moved back the deadline for their proposed merger, having failed to secure the approval of the relevant authorities, but this latest delay promises to be shorter than others.
  The Canadian operators inked a merger deal as long ago as March 2021 and were initially working to a first-half 2022 completion date, but the regulatory process turned out to be trickier than they had anticipated. As such, they extended the terms of their arrangement to 31 January, but with a
  
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• Bell takes a punt on Cohere’s Open RAN tech

  31-01-2023 10:38
  Canadian incumbent Bell Canada has become the latest telco to invest in budding Open RAN software supplier Cohere Technologies.
  Cohere is working on two product offerings. Its Universal Spectrum Multiplier (USM) software claims to offer a 2x improvement in spectral efficiency and capacity. It can be integrated in the RAN, distributed unit (DU), centralised unit (CU), or as an xApp in the RAN intelligent controller (RIC) within a telco cloud. Cohere says USM can work on both 4G and 5G networks.
  I
  
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• The nitty gritty of the TfL fares changes for 2023

  31-01-2023 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A couple of weeks ago, the Mayor of London announced the headline changes to TfL’s fares from this March, but it was only a week later that the full details were finally released.
  What is odd this year is that the press release was issued before the Mayor had signed theofficial decision paper authorising what changes to make, when usually the Mayor has to make the decision before the announcement can be made to the public.
  Fares announcement
  Mayoral Decision signed
  2023-24
  18th Jan 2023
  26
  
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