Telecom news

• EPIC questions Google’s security credentials

  01-08-2017 12:05
  The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking the body to investigate Google’s tracking algorithms.
  According to EPIC, Google not only collects information about users in the digital world, but also in the physical. Using such tools as Store Sales Measurements, Google is able to figure out whether you use your device to research a product before going in to purchase IRL. It’s a way for advertisers to figure out w
  
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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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• Angel tube station could become exit-only or close entirely as TfL battles failing escalators

  21-10-2026 15:00 via IanVisits
  
  Angel tube station in central London faces possible closure as its ageing escalators become increasingly unreliable and difficult to repair.The escalators are now about 35 years old, having been installed when the station was rebuilt between 1989 and 1992, and are due for their first major replacement. However, Transport for London (TfL) faces a problem as the escalators are famously the longest on the London Underground, and their unique design makes replacement more challenging than usual.
  All
  
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• New Dickens exhibition looks at the smells and poverty of old London

  21-10-2026 13:00 via IanVisits
  
  A foul and putrid air is once again abroad in London, as the stench of cholera and death that once haunted its streets seeps into the Charles Dickens Museum.
  The museum’s new exhibition examines the era before John Snow identified the source of disease in London, when people feared the miasma seeping into every home.The exhibition illustrates the strength of Dickens’s feelings about water pollution and public health, in the years before the Great Stink of 1858, showing how the issue found it
  
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• Musk’s SpaceX ambitions may be ‘dangerous’ for Europe, warns EU lawmaker

  21-10-2026 12:45 via Telecoms
  EU must protect sector from foreign rivals, says parliament’s lead negotiator on telecoms reform
  
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• The last street in east London still lit by gas lights could switch to electric lights

  21-10-2026 08:00 via IanVisits
  
  The last street in East London still lit by gas street lamps could see them replaced with electric LED bulbs under plans by the local residents’ association.You can find the gas lamps just a few hundred metres from Canary Wharf, on a small U-bend road called Malam Gardens. Malam Gardens is a private road, and it owes its existence to the housing development that followed the clearance of a manor house owned by the Wade family.
  However, the gas lighting on the road has some significance in the
  
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• To replace Starlink, Europe will have to reawaken its animal spirits

  21-10-2026 06:00 via Telecoms
  Even splurging on homegrown options won’t, by itself, solve the problem in a reasonable length of time
  
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• New Poems on the Underground for autumn

  20-10-2026 11:00 via IanVisits
  
  Transport for London (TfL) has refreshed its Poems on the Underground for the autumn, with a new selection of classical, contemporary and international works.
  (c) TfL
  The new poets chosen include:Grace Nichols
  Langston Hughe
  Valerie Bloom
  Emily Brontë
  Jaan Kaplinski
  Bernard O’DonoghuePoems on the Underground will round out this year’s 40th anniversary celebrations with a poetry and music event on Saturday 24 October at the Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre. The lineup feature
  
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• The ‘Captain’s Brothel’: a Victorian hotel with its own railway station

  20-10-2026 08:00 via IanVisits
  
  When Victorian Londoners wanted to travel overseas, they could catch a train from central London to the “Captain’s Brothel”, more politely called the Gallions Hotel, where they would board a boat to their destination.The hotel was built in 1881-83 by the London and St Katharine Docks Company after it had secured rights to run trains along the railway line between Tower Bridge and the newly opened Royal Albert Dock. They wanted a hotel here because, in addition to handling cargo
  
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• Virgin Media O2 owners push CMA to reconsider £2bn broadband deal

  20-10-2026 06:00 via Telecoms
  Liberty Global and Telefónica argue that BT’s acquisition of TalkTalk has materially changed competition in the UK market
  
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• Ambani looks to pull off India’s biggest IPO

  20-10-2026 02:33 via Telecoms
  Jio Platforms aims to list at $107bn valuation amid stock market downturn, tougher competition and goading from Elon Musk
  
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• The London Buzz – 19th Oct 2026

  19-10-2026 18:00 via IanVisits
  
  Olde London – Piccadilly Circus about 1910
  Today’s London news round-up:
  The homeless man living in front of a London mega-mansion DW
  Stroudley Walk regeneration delivers 82 affordable homes East London Advertiser
  Is an industrial revolution taking place in London? BBC News
  Plans to build almost 1,300 homes on Crowlands Heath Golf Course have moved forward after being approved by councillors in Barking and Dagenham. Romford Recorder
  Greens could fail to win any seats in London at nex
  
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• New skyscraper for the City nearly as tall as The Shard

  19-10-2026 17:30 via IanVisits
  
  London’s cluster of tallest buildings could all slip down the rankings as plans for a 70-storey skyscraper, almost as tall as The Shard, are being made. The proposed tower would stand next to The Gherkin on a narrow site occupied by a 1980s office building known as Exchequer Court.
  Exchequer Court
  Amazingly, it still won’t be the tallest tower in the City of London, as the One London skyscraper will be about 10 metres taller than this latest proposal.
  Although the new tower would sta
  
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• Wider pavements and cycle lanes proposed for City’s monument junction

  19-10-2026 17:00 via IanVisits
  
  The busy road junction outside Monument tube station could gain new pedestrian crossings, wider pavements and protected cycle lanes under proposals that would also remove the entrances to its disused underground public toilets.
  Monument Junction
  Transport for London (TfL) is consulting on a redesign of the busy City of London junction, including an option to pedestrianise Fish Street Hill and make several crossings wider or more direct.
  Some of the changes are subject to final approval by the Ci
  
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• Tickets Alert: Christmas Eve carols at King’s College, Cambridge

  19-10-2026 15:00 via IanVisits
  
  If you fancy spending Christmas Eve in Cambridge, then the ballot to attend the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College is now open.
  King’s College (c) ianVisits
  King’s College broadcasts two carol services.
  The famous one that goes out on BBC2 in the evening, Carols from King’s, is actually prerecorded a few weeks before the broadcast (sorry for the spoiler), and attendance is limited to college members.
  However, there is a service on Christmas Eve afternoo
  
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• KKR accused by EU of misleading regulators over €22bn telecoms deal

  19-10-2026 13:32 via Telecoms
  Private equity group disputes it gave false or misleading information to Brussels as it sought clearance for FiberCop deal
  
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• European telecoms groups join forces to challenge Musk’s Starlink

  19-10-2026 13:22 via Telecoms
  Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone to explore joint bid for spectrum to provide mobile satellite coverage
  
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• Three exhibitions at two Tate galleries

  19-10-2026 13:00 via IanVisits
  
  A selection of three exhibitions that have opened in recent weeks at the two Tates.
  The 90s: Art and FashionThis exhibition about the 1990s seems curated by someone who either didn’t live through it or was so divorced from reality that they thought the fashion world was the real world.
  It offers a very narrow view of the 1990s, filtered through the glossy magazines of the time, and focuses mainly on the fashion world, with a brief nod to the art world, which was busy putting Britain firmly
  
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• Headphones or a £100 fine? Councils to tackle noisy bus passengers

  19-10-2026 09:45 via IanVisits
  
  Passengers who play music out loud on buses could face fines of up to £100 under new powers granted to local authorities in England.There hadn’t been a specific bylaw banning music on buses (outside London), although existing general noise nuisance laws could be enforced, even if they very rarely were. The new powers that allow the £100 fines come under the Bus Services Act 2025, which lets local transport authorities across England set and enforce their own rules.
  The act incl
  
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• London’s Alleys: Cuthberts Alley, Loughton, IG10

  19-10-2026 08:00 via IanVisits
  
  This tiny and easy to miss alley near Loughton tube station is one of the oldest passageways in the area. In fact, I nearly missed it when wandering up to Epping Forest to visit the “Knives Out church” at High Beech.The alley is older than the church and first appeared in the 1860s, when the area was beginning to be developed with the arrival of Loughton station, as a small unnamed passage from the High Road to Smarts Lane.
  OS map 1872
  OS map 1966
  The reason for the alley’s cre
  
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• The London Buzz – 16th Oct 2026

  16-10-2026 18:00 via IanVisits
  
  Olde London – Chiswick High Road around 1910
  Today’s London news round-up:
  A tribunal judge has ruled that management of a children’s hospital school unfairly sacked a senior teacher following a “retaliatory action” for “protected” union rep activities. Camden New Journal
  A London couple have lost a four-year boundary battle over a 48cm “sliver” of land after trying to force their neighbours to demolish the kitchen wall of their £600,00
  
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• Tickets Alert: Tours of UCL’s maps collection

  16-10-2026 17:00 via IanVisits
  
  An opportunity is coming up to explore one of the UK’s last surviving university map libraries and see its collection up close.For the first time, Professor James Cheshire will lead tours of the UCL Map Library as it opens its doors to the public. During this 90-minute visit, James will share stories from his research into the collection for his book ‘The Library of Lost Maps’, which reveals how maps have helped inspire some of the greatest scientific discoveries, but also led
  
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• Free Stanley Kubrick exhibition coming to London

  16-10-2026 15:00 via IanVisits
  
  One of the infamous axe props from The Shining will be the highlight of a free Stanley Kubrick exhibition in London early next year, ahead of the collection being sold at auction.
  Stanley Kubrick, self-portrait, circa 1949. Courtesy of Stanley Kubrick Film Archives
  Featuring props, scripts, equipment, and personal possessions offered directly from the Stanley Kubrick Film Archives, the exhibition will be a preview of the sale but will also be freely open to the public.
  Highlights on display incl
  
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• Starlink spectrum deal piles Elon Musk’s plate ever higher

  16-10-2026 14:15 via Telecoms
  Move may be part of a bigger plan but it spells even more capital expenditure at a company already spending beyond its means
  
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