Telecom news

• Sale on Tina Turner Musical Tickets – from £24

  23-05-2023 19:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Based on the life of international recording artist Tina Turner, this production made a huge splash in the UK during its West End premiere.
  Seats start from £24 for mid-week evening shows, but there’s a good sale on the better seats closer to the stage.£60 seats are on sale for £35
  £72 seats are on sale for £45
  £150 seats are on sale for £95The snap sale is valid for Monday – Friday and Sunday performances up to 30th June 2023 when booked fro
  
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• RMT union extends its London Underground strike mandate

  23-05-2023 17:55 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The RMT union has secured approval to extend its strike action on the London Underground for a further six months, and the members attitudes appear to have hardened since the last vote for strike action.Unions can seek a strike ballot from their members, but it needs to be renewed every six months to ensure the dispute is still active.
  Last December, the vote was 94% in favour of maintaining strike action on a turnout of 52%. However, the latest strike ballot results shows a hardening of views,
  
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• German digital minister sees no justification for fair contribution

  23-05-2023 17:12
  More politicians are weighing in on whether telcos should be permitted to charge content companies for carrying their traffic.
  In an interview with Welt (in German) this week, Digital Minister Volker Wissing described the free and open Internet as “a great asset that needs to be protected,” before stating that he does not support intervening in the market. Similarly in February, the Dutch government said charging content providers might be incompatible with net neutrality, and might
  
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• BT: dealmaker Drahi’s unlikely reinvention as yield investor

  23-05-2023 17:08 via ft.com
  UK would probably block full purchase of the telecoms group by a debt-heavy foreign buyer
  
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• Pressure building to extend the DLR to Thamesmead

  23-05-2023 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The campaign to extend the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) across the river to Thamesmead has stepped up with two MPs raising the issue.
  The Minister for London, and now a prospective candidate for Mayor of London, Paul Scully MP paid a visit to Thamesmead last week to hear about the proposals, while local MP, Abena Oppong-Asare MP has written to the Transport Secretary calling for the railway to be built.
  If built, then the DLR extension would run in a new spur off the Beckton branch to a new sta
  
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• Spain wants to scrap end-to-end encryption, according to leaked doc

  23-05-2023 13:45
  According to a leaked EU document, there is significant appetite from some EU member states to allow private messages to be scanned in order to curb the spread of child sexual abuse material.
  The document in question, leaked to Wired, is a survey carried out by the European Council of 20 member states’ views on message encryption regulation, in relation to a proposed law which is supposed to make it easier to find and combat the spread child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in Europe, by requi
  
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• Spain wants to scrap end-to-end encryption

  23-05-2023 13:45
  According to a leaked EU document, there is significant appetite from some EU member states to allow private messages to be scanned in order to curb the spread of child sexual abuse material.
  The document in question, first leaked to Wired, is a survey carried out by the European Council of 20 member states’ views on message encryption regulation, in relation to a proposed law which is supposed to make it easier to find and combat the spread child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in Europe, by
  
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• TikTok argues Montana ban violates first amendment

  23-05-2023 13:39
  The US state of Montana wants to ban app stores from offering popular Chinese-owned social media service TikTok, a move that has profound free speech implications.
  Montana made the announcement last week, which seems to set all kinds of legal precedents. Unsurprisingly TikTok is challenging the move, filing a lawsuit asserting that the ban shouldn’t be allowed for the following reasons:It violates the first amendment rights of TikTok and its users, specifically as it “effects a prior
  
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• Upminster windmill reopens to the public

  23-05-2023 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  One of London’s last surviving windmills will reopen to the public this weekend following several years of restoration work.
  (c) Upminster Windmill
  The Upminster Windmill was built in 1803 and remained in use as a family-owned business grinding corn until 1934. In 1960 Essex County Council demolished the outbuildings though in the following years repairs were undertaken enabling the Mill to be opened to the public, staffed by volunteers, in 1967.
  The mill is now just one of only six with s
  
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• Is it time to kill off Wi-Fi on the railways?

  23-05-2023 12:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Train companies might be told to stop providing Wi-Fi on trains in an effort to cut costs while train revenues are still below pre-pandemic levels, and unsurprisingly, this has provoked many column inches of outrage, but there’s more to the issue than seems.Yes, the Department for Transport (DfT) is reviewing the case for free Wi-Fi provision in trains and has cited a survey by the passenger watchdog, Transport Focus which suggests onboard Wi-Fi is a lower priority among travellers than va
  
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• US launches fresh bid to appoint FCC Commissioner

  23-05-2023 12:28
  President Biden has nominated telco lawyer Anna Gomez for Commissioner of the US Federal Communications Commission in an effort to fill a role that has been vacant for over two years.
  Gomez has plenty of experience with US government agencies. Since January she has served in the State Department as senior advisor for international information and communications policy at the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. She has also served in the Commerce Department as deputy assistant secretary of t
  
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• Altice increases its ownership of BT shares to 24.5%

  23-05-2023 12:13
  Patrick Drahi-owned Altice UK has announced it has increased its holding of shares in UK operator group BT to almost a quarter, but still doesn’t intend to make a full acquisition bid.
  The latest purchase was of 650 million shares, which took Altice’s total holding to 24.5%, up from 18%. That previous threshold was subject to a UK government probe last year, which concluded that Drahi’s involvement in the company doesn’t present a national security risk. It may decide thi
  
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• Italy to spend €1.5 billion helping telcos

  23-05-2023 10:00
  The Italian government is working on what is effectively an aid plan worth more than €1.5 billion to help national telecoms operators, it emerged this week.
  A draft decree outlines the details of the plan, which mainly seems to involve giving telecoms operators tax breaks over the next few years, with some cash also going towards the upgrade of copper networks to fibre and early retirement funds, Reuters reported, having had sight of the draft document.
  The whole thing appears to be careful
  
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• Patrick Drahi’s Altice lifts stake in BT to almost 25%

  23-05-2023 08:56 via ft.com
  Billionaire raises holding from 18% but says he has no plans to make an offer for UK telecoms company
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: Starcross Yard, NW1

  23-05-2023 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A new pocket park has opened close to Euston station, as a temporary space while the HS2 station next door is being built, although, with the state of things, it might end up being as temporary as the unlamented green shed in front of King’s Cross station.The new pocket park sits in a space that was occupied by the Maria Fidelis school, but as the school sits right next to the HS2 building site, it closed in 2019 and moved to another nearby location. Since then, one of the school buildings
  
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