Telecom news

• CenturyLink/Level 3: Pipe-fitting

  31-10-2016 18:45 via Telecoms
  Telecoms are dull, until the dealmakers show up
  
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• Bakerloo line extension gets Budget boost from local tax powers

  28-10-2026 15:15 via IanVisits
  
  The Bakerloo line extension got a boost in the Budget when the Chancellor announced that local regions can keep more local tax revenue to fund infrastructure projects.
  The policy change means money raised locally can be spent locally.
  Crucially, it allows regional mayors – such as the Mayor of London – to borrow against future tax revenues. Those powers already exist, but tend to be limited to smaller projects decided by local authorities, rather than regional mayors.
  Bakerloo line extension
  
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• New public park proposed for Canary Wharf development

  28-10-2026 15:00 via IanVisits
  
  Canary Wharf could get a new park as part of plans for a major new JP Morgan office block next to Westferry Circus.
  Initial concept (c) Foster + Partners
  JP Morgan bought the Riverside site on the edge of the Thames in 2008 for a new headquarters, but the banking crisis halted progress almost immediately. They later moved into Lehman Brothers’ former London head office instead, but are now planning to develop the site at last.
  Although plans for the tower, to be designed by Foster + Partners a
  
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• Affordable art from Renaissance Italy fills a free British Museum exhibition

  28-10-2026 13:00 via IanVisits
  
  Images pasted onto walls, carried in pockets, and used for playing cards fill a room as the British Museum looks back on Italian Renaissance woodcut prints.Although not all of them are tiny, as the exhibition opens with a huge bird’s-eye view of Venice from around 1460-1516, but the majority in the exhibition were sold as affordable art to a populace that couldn’t afford a painting.
  Today, as rare survivors, they command rather higher prices, alas.
  Described by the museum as the first displa
  
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• Tickets Alert: The Barbican’s final free conservatory plants giveaway

  28-10-2026 12:00 via IanVisits
  
  If you’ve ever wanted to own a piece of the Barbican Conservatory, a final plant-cutting giveaway has been announced ahead of its closure for refurbishment.
  Conservatory space (c) ianVisits
  Ahead of the conservatory’s closure, Wayward Plants have been taking thousands of cuttings from a wide range of specimens and propagating them at their reuse centre into new plants to be adopted.
  Wayward Plants will lead the adoption process, where you can learn about the different specimen types and how
  
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• One month to go until London Museum opens its new Smithfield home

  28-10-2026 11:30 via IanVisits
  
  Only one month remains until the London Museum reopens, where visitors can touch a brick scorched in the Great Fire, see the entire Cheapside Hoard, and watch Thameslink trains rumble past the museum’s basement.
  And free tickets to visit the museum on its opening day are now available.The former Museum of London closed in November 2022 and will reopen, later than originally planned, on 28th November 2026 at its new Smithfield site as the rebranded London Museum, with a controversial pigeon log
  
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• Gulliver to be freed from behind fences on east London estate

  28-10-2026 11:00 via IanVisits
  
  An abstract sculpture of Gulliver from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, created for children to play on, will be restored to its original use as a playground feature.
  Gulliver sculpture (c) ianVisits
  Created by sculptor Trevor Tennant and installed in Limehouse’s Locksley Estate in August 1958, Gulliver was designed as the centrepiece of a large children’s sandpit. The artist intended for children to scramble, swing, slide and hide behind the giant figure.Embed from Getty Images
  Howe
  
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• ianVisits turns twenty — two decades of exploring London

  28-10-2026 08:00 via IanVisits
  
  ianVisits is 20 years old today. Happy birthday to me and all that jazz. Sadly, it’s the website’s anniversary, not mine, as I’m considerably older than that, with less hair, more wrinkles, and a bigger waistline. Anyway, twenty years ago today, I started a website and, rather unexpectedly, it’s still going.The first article appeared on 28th October 2006, with no grand strategy, just a promise of assorted observations, ideas, and occasional technical ramblings as I worked out what to do
  
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• Shares of Ambani’s Jio rise 21% in India’s biggest IPO

  28-10-2026 05:42 via Telecoms
  Telecoms business raises $3.2bn at $108bn valuation in relief to stock market hit by war in Iran
  
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• Ambani’s $130bn Jio soars in India’s biggest listing

  28-10-2026 05:42 via Telecoms
  Telecoms business raises $3.2bn at $108bn valuation in relief to stock market hit by war in Iran
  
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• Royal blingfest to bring 500 years of jewellery to the King’s Gallery

  27-10-2026 15:00 via IanVisits
  
  Over 500 years of royal jewellery will go on display next year, and tickets to the blingfest go on sale shortly.
  Diamond Diadem, Buckingham Palace 2012 (c) ianVisits
  The exhibition, at the King’s Gallery next to Buckingham Palace, will bring together more than 300 pieces of jewellery from the 16th century to the present day, around two-thirds on display for the first time.
  Jewels ranging from as early as King Henry VIII through Charles II to Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II will be shown
  
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• Beyond Bayeux: Guildhall Art Gallery explores the art of modern tapestry

  27-10-2026 13:00 via IanVisits
  
  It’s tapestry season in London, and while the big one is historic, the Guildhall Art Gallery is also showing a collection of modern tapestries.The exhibition, Beyond Bayeux: Tapestry Now, brings together work made by Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios, exploring how artists and weavers turn paintings, drawings and digital designs into textiles. Although the title takes its cue from the Bayeux Tapestry, the exhibition focuses on tapestry’s ongoing development as a modern art form.
  Founded in 1912,
  
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• Angel Tube station to be exit-only at weekends from early 2027

  27-10-2026 12:15 via IanVisits
  
  Ongoing escalator problems at Angel Tube station have forced Transport for London’s hand, and it has announced that the station will be exit-only on weekends and bank holidays from Saturday 2nd January until further notice.Transport for London (TfL) says the change is part of work to extend the working life of the station’s escalators, some of which are nearly 35 years old and are becoming less reliable and harder to maintain.
  TfL’s analysis shows that more people leave Angel Tube station
  
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• UK needs more powers to intervene when telecoms providers fail, minister says

  26-10-2026 23:19 via Telecoms
  Lisa Nandy tells MPs she is concerned about the sector’s ‘financial fragility’ in the wake of broadband provider TalkTalk’s near-collapse
  
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• London’s Alleys: Powell’s Walk, Chiswick, W4

  26-10-2026 08:00 via IanVisits
  
  This narrow passage, surrounded along most of its route by high brick walls, links an old church with a since-demolished manor house.It’s an old route, showing up in John Rocque’s map of 10 miles around London from 1746, as a route from the church through fields to the once rural Burlington Lane – which is today a very busy wide road leading to the Hogarth Roundabout.
  OS map 1866
  There is a mystery about the name, as most online sources say that the alley was originally called Paul’s Wal
  
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• Last buses run down Oxford Street as pedestrianisation kicks in

  26-10-2026 01:01 via IanVisits
  
  Just before 8pm on Sunday evening, the last buses and taxis made their way along the half of Oxford Street that is now fully pedestrianised.In the hours leading up to the closure, trucks bearing the logos of well-known maintenance and construction companies started parking along the street, and a small army of hi-vis workers slowly gathered in groups.
  All hints that something was about to happen.
  Bus nerds could be seen in the front of the upper decks of the last buses to ply the street, getting
  
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• The London Buzz – 23rd Oct 2026

  23-10-2026 18:00 via IanVisits
  
  Olde London – Park Road, Regents Park between 1900 and 1908
  Today’s London news round-up:
  Around 211 households have been evacuated from two tower blocks in Canning Town due to serious structural issues. Newham Council
  A cinema in Romford is getting a “major refurbishment” including a new “largest screen” for the venue with “world-leading” technology.  Romford Recorder
  Who is London’s mystery Batman doing good deeds? BBC News
  Ealing Council is offering local businesses grants
  
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• Plans to widen the pavement outside the British Museum’s main entrance

  23-10-2026 16:00 via IanVisits
  
  The crowded pavement outside the British Museum could be widened to reduce congestion as an interim measure ahead of a proposed pedestrianisation of the entire road.
  Great Russell Street outside the museum (c) ianVisits
  Camden Council is working on plans for full pedestrianisation, but as a short-term improvement, it is proposing several smaller changes to the area outside the museum.
  The council will make several changes to traffic routes and improve some existing pedestrian crossings. It will
  
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• Tickets Alert: Williams F1 50th anniversary exhibition

  23-10-2026 15:00 via IanVisits
  
  London’s famous graffiti tunnel under Waterloo station is to host a Formula 1 exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of the Williams F1 racing team.Set in the railway arches, it harks back to the moment Frank Williams discovered co-founder Patrick Head working in a garage under a London railway arch and persuaded him to build racing cars instead.
  The exhibition, W50 Live: Williams, 50 Years of F1 Racing, will be an immersive, actor-led journey through five decades of the racing team. During t
  
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• It wasn’t all about tea: Science Museum examines the making of America

  23-10-2026 13:00 via IanVisits
  
  A red line on a map, a complaint about slow post and a few fragments recovered from a swamp help tell the story of America’s founding in a new exhibition. In the 250th anniversary of its independence from the glory that is us, the Science Museum looks back at the colonial years the effect of European arrivals in the Americas.It was a land where the natives saw themselves as stewards of the land, whereas Europeans saw it as a resource to be exploited. And a lot of the history of those times is
  
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• One last ride: Catch the last bus to run fully along Oxford Street

  23-10-2026 10:00 via IanVisits
  
  This weekend marks the start of the phased pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, as buses are progressively diverted away from the street.Permanent bus changes will begin in phases from 1am on Saturday 24 October, with diversions coming into effect route by route. TfL’s travel updates say that the final buses will run along Oxford Street just before 8pm on Sunday 25th October.
  According to the TfL travel guide, the last bus to run fully along Oxford Street from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arc
  
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• Greenwich map thief banned from being alone in museum and library reading rooms

  22-10-2026 17:15 via IanVisits
  
  A man has been banned from being left alone in any reading room of a museum or library in England and Wales after he was convicted of stealing an antique map from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
  Melvin West, 73, was also sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for the theft early last year.Police were called to the National Maritime Museum last February after library staff found a small knife on the floor at a desk used by library visitors.
  Security cameras led staff to a 350-year-ol
  
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• Roman coffin, Saxon bones: Fresh clues to Westminster Abbey mystery

  22-10-2026 17:00 via IanVisits
  
  The mystery surrounding a skeleton found in a Roman sarcophagus excavated on the grounds of Westminster Abbey more than 150 years ago seems closer to being solved.
  And he wasn’t Roman.
  (c) Westminster Abbey
  The limestone sarcophagus, discovered in 1869, bears an inscription to Valerius Amandinus, a wealthy Briton who lived in the city around 300 to 400 AD.
  The lid also bears a Latin cross, dated to the 10th or 11th century, suggesting the human remains found inside might belong to an Anglo-Sax
  
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• Eastcote tube station gets step-free upgrade planning permission

  22-10-2026 15:00 via IanVisits
  
  West London’s Eastcote tube station has been granted planning permission for a step-free upgrade, but it still needs funding to proceed.
  Eastcote tube station
  However, securing planning permission now can help speed up the process once funding is found and also helps secure it, as Transport for London (TfL) can carry out the works quickly.
  Eastcote tube station was built between 1937 and 1939, is Grade II Listed. It is a particularly important example of a well preserved historic London Underg
  
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• A rare chance to see Hokusai’s complete Mount Fuji series in London

  22-10-2026 13:00 via IanVisits
  
  Three of the one of the most famous images in the art world have gone on display in a one-off exhibition that points out that they were just one in a series of 36 artworks about something else.The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a print by the Japanese artist Hokusai, and while our eyes focus on the wave looming over the boat and the fishermen caught in its grasp, the print is really about something in the background… Mount Fuji.
  The print is from the series known as the Thirty-six Views of Mount F
  
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• TfL earns £1.1 million from Turkish Airlines’ Elizabeth line advertising deal

  22-10-2026 11:00 via IanVisits
  
  You might have seen some large adverts appearing on the Elizabeth line recently, and they’re all part of a year-long campaign promoting Turkish Airlines.The campaign mixes banners at the bottom of station roundels with, in some places, very wide banners showing fictional timetables in a sort of tube moquette colour scheme.
  It’s now been confirmed that Transport for London (TfL) is earning £1.1 million from the campaign.
  In exchange, the airline gets its banners on up to 60 roundels across t
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: Meanwhile Gardens, Paddington, W10

  22-10-2026 08:00 via IanVisits
  
  This substantial park runs along the Grand Union Canal and sits on land cleared of slums in the 1970s, then saved from developers.After what is today the Grand Union Canal was completed 220 years ago, housing quickly lined its banks, with back gardens facing the canal, and the area around it slowly filled in. Because the canal was for industrial use and not the pleasant landscape we have today, the surrounding area was fairly working-class, with cheaper homes.
  With urban decline after WWII affec
  
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• The London Buzz – 21st Oct 2026

  21-10-2026 18:00 via IanVisits
  
  Olde London – Wembley High Road c. 1900–1915
  Today’s London news round-up:
  Lambeth steps up night-time patrols to tackle illegal trading and ‘keep people safe’ Brixton Buzz
  Trouble at mill: a falling window stopped the Wandle’s last working waterwheel Putney News
  The “continued weakness” of London’s housing market is creating further financial problems for Enfield Council’s troubled district heating network, Enfield Dispatch
  An anonymous leaflet campaign targeting a couple wh
  
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• London Fire Brigade Museum to reopen as part of LFB’s new headquarters

  21-10-2026 17:00 via IanVisits
  
  The London Fire Brigade will reopen its long-closed museum after securing planning permission to revamp its historic Albert Embankment headquarters.
  London Fire Brigade headquarters building
  The Brigade built much of the site in the 1930s as its headquarters, but moved out in 2008, intending to redevelop the old building into flats. The Secretary of State blocked this in 2021, and since then the London Fire Brigade has been working on a new scheme to restore the building as its headquarters.
  Lam
  
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• London’s Lord Mayor’s Show returns to its river roots with Thames pageant

  21-10-2026 16:30 via IanVisits
  
  A flotilla carrying the Lord Mayor of London will pass through Tower Bridge next month as the Lord Mayor’s show returns to its original location, the River Thames.
  Canaletto painting of the Lord Mayor’s Show 1746-48
  For most of its more than 800-year existence, the Lord Mayor’s Show took place on the river because the roads weren’t good enough, but in 1856/7 it finally moved from the river to land, where it’s been ever since.
  In recent years, a few boats have paraded up the Thames in a
  
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