Telecom news

• UK rolls out £67m Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme

  15-03-2018 01:00
  A nationwide Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme has been launched by the UK government to help small and medium sized businesses pay for the cost of connecting to gigabit ready, Fibre to the Home (FTTH) services. From today, small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) can claim a voucher worth up to &pound…read more on TotalTele.com »
  
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• King Charles III’s formal state portrait to go on display in London

  08-10-2026 11:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The first official portrait of King Charles III in formal state attire, with a coronation robe and an orb and sceptre, will be on display in central London for a couple of weeks.
  Stern Pissarro Gallery
  The portrait is by Toronto doctor artist Dr Suan-Seh Foo and was commissioned by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia for their official portrait.
  It will be permanently displayed at Government House in Halifax, but for a short while, it will be on display in London.
  The oil-on-can
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: St Johns Street, Clerkenwell, EC1

  08-10-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  This is a new linear park near Farringdon Station that opened a few months agoSt Johns Street is a historic street in Clerkenwell and forms the first section of the original route of the Great North Road – the coaching route between London and Scotland. This section of the road has always been very wide, probably as a turn around spot before the road reaches Smithfield markets, so in 2022, plans were put forward to shrink it a bit for the first time in its history.
  The two way road has bee
  
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• The London Buzz – 7th Oct 2026

  07-10-2026 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Olde London – Parliament Hill, Hampstead
  Today’s London news round-up:
  O2 has struck a record deal thought to be in the region of £200m to retain the naming rights to the London venue the O2 in the largest renewal of its kind in UK history. The Guardian
  In photos: Kennington Skatepark (the Kenny) becomes a homeless camp Brixton Buzz
  The candidates hoping to be London’s second Tory mayor BBC News
  A new study published today explains, for the first time in detail, how the s
  
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• Future GBR trains expected to offer step-free access by default

  07-10-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  All new Great British Railways (GBR) trains will be expected to try to offer step-free access without needing staff-assisted ramps, the government has confirmed.
  No more ramps with GBR trains?
  The Transport Secretary has confirmed that unassisted access between platform and train will be a baseline expectation for new GBR trains.
  The commitment forms part of the government’s rolling stock and infrastructure strategy, announced last month, which will bring decisions about trains, track, dep
  
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• Sleepy European telcos turn to data centre craze

  07-10-2026 16:28 via ft.com
  With data centres, companies in the sector may finally be on to happier hunting grounds
  
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• Tickets Alert: Chelsea Flower Show tickets going on sale shortly

  07-10-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A date for your floral diary, as tickets to next year’s Chelsea Flower Show go on sale later this month.
  The flower show runs from 18th-22nd May 2027, but the first two days are for RHS members only, so the public have three days – Thursday 20th to Saturday 22nd May — to attend.
  It’s not a cheap show to visit – and prices are still to be announced, but for 2026, they started at £107 per person.
  Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday 21st October from here.
  A tip
  
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• Exhibition explores how London turned fire and coffee into an insurance industry

  07-10-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  In 1700s London, if you needed household insurance to protect your home from fire, you had to visit a place that sold “essence of old shoes”. That unlikely location is where the London insurance market began, and a new exhibition explores its origins and how it spurred London’s emerging financial markets.Of course, what we are talking about are the coffee shops, and famously Lloyds, where Edward Lloyd started by importing coffee from Yemen and roasting it.
  Away from London&rsqu
  
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• HS2’s Wendover tunnel is ready to start disappearing beneath the countryside

  07-10-2026 11:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The busy, noisy A413 road has been protected from the occasional swoosh of an HS2 train after the final segment of a 1.4km concrete tunnel was installed alongside it.
  The structure in June 2026 (c) ianVisits
  When the HS2 railway was being planned, running it through the Chilterns next to an existing busy road seemed like the obvious choice, but local opposition has seen the railway covered in a concrete tunnel as it passes near the town of Wendover.
  Unlike HS2’s deep-bored tunnels, the Wen
  
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• The 1920s proposal to build an airport in Hyde Park

  07-10-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Did you know that Hyde Park should be an airport? Yes, really! Because a century ago, when London was smaller and planes even more so, there was a semi-serious attempt to build an airport on Hyde Park.
  You what!?
  Complaints that London’s sole international airport, at Croydon, was too far from central London and too inconvenient for busy people to schlep all the way down there for a flight spurred the idea of a more central airport.
  In October 1926, it was reported that Lord Apsley MP prop
  
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• Bayeux Tapestry’s lost ending reimagined for Westminster Abbey exhibition

  06-10-2026 20:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Coinciding with the final few months of the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition in the British Museum, Westminster Abbey will display what the final missing panel might have looked like.
  How did it end?
  The tapestry is thought to be missing its final panel, either because it was lost or never completed, but modern artists have occasionally attempted to imagine what it might have looked like. And a millennium after the birth of William the Conqueror, Westminster Abbey will display such a possible panel. D
  
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• The London Buzz – 6th Oct 2026

  06-10-2026 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Old London – Commercial Street in Spitalfields around 1907
  Today’s London news round-up:
  Lambeth Council has confirmed that it is due to review the possibility of introducing a four-day week trial. Local Gov
  Works to remove flammable material from a large block of 100 flats in Barking town centre have been approved. Barking Star
  Harrow council had already slapped poppies on lampposts. Diamond Geezer
  Londoners could get a reward of £500 by reporting persistent Tube fare evaders
  
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• Hither Green’s new footbridge opens for station’s step-free upgrade

  06-10-2026 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Last week, two shabby old footbridges at Hither Green railway station were replaced with one single very long spanning modern footbridge, as part of the station’s upgrade to make it step-free and build two new entrances.Although only the footbridge and a new ramp between platforms 4 and 5 have opened so far, the wider step-free scheme will also add four 16-person lifts. They are installed, but undergoing testing.
  The new footbridge is a substantial structure and is clearly much larger than
  
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• Kew Gardens to offer rare visits inside its emptied Palm House

  06-10-2026 14:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Next year there will be a rare opportunity to step into Kew Gardens’ famously large Palm House and see the entire structure for the first time in generations, totally empty of plants.
  Palm House (c) ianVisits
  The nearly 180-year-old tropical glasshouse is usually packed full of plants – and very humid – so the remarkable structure of the building is often hard to appreciate. As part of a once-in-a-generation restoration project, staff are currently moving all the plants from th
  
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• Frieze drops eleven sculptures into Regents Park

  06-10-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Visitors to Regents Park may notice some very odd additions at the moment as the annual Frieze sculpture trail returns.Featuring work by 11 artists, the collection ranges from seemingly random assemblages of metalwork to a tree that’s easy to miss but worth seeking out to pointless slabs of stone in the ground.
  The black palm is worth seeking out because when you look closely, you’ll see that the leaves are all made from old car tyres.Elsewhere is a rather sci-fi looking structure, a
  
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• Your guide to London’s 2026 fireworks and bonfire displays

  06-10-2026 12:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  It’s that time of year again, with Christmas in the shops and fireworks in the parks – Fireworks Night is back for 2026, and in a few locations, the displays still include the traditional bonfire.Prices below are for adults – children and family rates are also available. You can probably see the top half of the display for free from outside most venues, but since many raise money for local charities, pay for tickets if you can.
  And, yes, there are a few displays in October.
  Fri
  
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• Alice in Wonderland experience in London opens next month

  06-10-2026 11:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A new Alice in Wonderland experience opens next month at Dock X in Canada Water, promising to take visitors through ten rooms spanning 26,000 sq ft. The 120-minute production combines live actors, theatrical storytelling, projection mapping and sensory effects to tell Lewis Carroll’s story.
  Alice Immersive Wonderland (c) Cités Immersives
  The route includes a Rabbit Hole, the Caterpillar’s Den, a Cheshire Cat forest, a Mad Hatter tea party and the Queen’s Court. It ends w
  
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• DLR staff get their own Monopoly-style board game

  06-10-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Lots of companies buy corporate-branded goodies to hand out to staff and other worthies, and oh, look, yet another branded water bottle and tote bag. But sometimes, it’s a DLR-themed clone of the Monopoly board game – KADOPOLY.It was commissioned by the Docklands Light Railway’s (DLR) operator, KeolisAmey, as gifts for staff, so you’re not going to see it in shops, but it’s still been done to a high standard, with a lot of DLR touches to the board game.
  Community Ch
  
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• The creditor bloodbath in UK telecoms

  06-10-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  BT struck a deal to buy TalkTalk but the majority of the struggling broadband provider’s creditors are likely to be left with nothing
  
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• BT’s swoop on TalkTalk has regulators over a barrel

  06-10-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  UK watchdog typically takes a robust view of reduced competition in telecoms market but is taking a back seat this time
  
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• The London Buzz – 5th Oct 2026

  05-10-2026 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Olde London – Clerkenwell Green in London around 1898
  Today’s London news round-up:
  At noon today, Mon 5th October, tenants, local residents, and community leaders will stage a rally outside City Hall to urge Mayor Sadiq Khan to block a controversial redevelopment in Brixton. Brixton Buzz
  Meet the 14-year-old uncovering London’s lost history Positive News
  Dagenham homeowner ordered to pay over £30k after subdividing property without permission Barking Star
  Central London
  
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• One rule to ride them all: Mayor plans London-wide dockless bike regime

  05-10-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The Mayor of London has outlined plans for a single London-wide regulatory regime for dockless bikes that could replace the current borough-by-borough patchwork of rules.The proposed framework would allow Transport for London (TfL) to manage bike numbers, set parking and maintenance standards, and require operators to share data to help monitor compliance and plan services. It would also seek to improve connections with public transport and introduce more consistent enforcement across borough bo
  
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• London Museum’s first exhibition goes back to the city’s Roman beginnings

  05-10-2026 15:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The soon-to-open London Museum has revealed details of its first exhibition in its underground vaults, going right back to London’s earliest story when it was founded by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago.
  CGI of the Vaults (c) Secchi Smith London Museum
  The museum will open in November with a permanent collection on display, but in Spring 2027 will open its first temporary exhibition, exploring Roman London’s first 50 years.
  At the heart of the new exhibition will be the Bloomberg Co
  
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• Pontoon Dock DLR station upgrade gets underway

  05-10-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Ground has broken on a long-planned upgrade of Pontoon Dock’s DLR station to add six escalators and reduce pressure on its overloaded lifts. Contractor Morgan Sindall Infrastructure says site mobilisation and enabling works are under way as part of a two-and-a-half-year programme.
  The station today (c) ianVisits
  Pontoon Dock opened in 2005, when the surrounding Royal Docks were far less populated. Its platforms sit high above street level, leaving passengers to climb stairs or choose betwe
  
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• BT buys struggling rival TalkTalk out of administration

  05-10-2026 08:36 via ft.com
  Deal will result in estimated £400mn cash hit for UK’s broadband leader and wipe out TalkTalk’s debts
  
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• BT closes in on deal for embattled TalkTalk

  05-10-2026 07:11 via ft.com
  Takeover would hand another 1.6mn broadband customers to UK market leader
  
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• BT weighs improved TalkTalk offer after initial approach rejected

  04-10-2026 13:03 via ft.com
  Telecoms group seeks deal within days for debt-laden broadband provider
  
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• Photographers launch appeal for east London community hub

  02-10-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A community photography centre could open in Haggerston under plans by the Association of Photographers (AOP) to turn its east London premises into a place for photographers to work, meet and share ideas.The AOP already owns the property, which it has rented out since 2012 to help fund its work. With the premises now available again, the association wants to use them as a hub for its members and the wider photography and image-making community.
  First, it needs to raise £75,000.
  The AOP say
  
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• Richmond’s draw-off dates confirmed for 2026

  02-10-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The dates for Richmond’s annual draw-off have been confirmed, offering visitors a chance to see the River Thames exposing its riverbed at very low tides.
  Richmond draw off 2025 (c) ianVisits
  Ordinarily, the low tide would look just like you’re seeing, but that would be a big nuisance for boats, so the Port of London Authority (PLA) uses the Richmond and Teddington locks to manage the river height and maintain a minimum level at low tide so the river can remain navigable.
  But turn the
  
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• Urgent closure of the Victoria line confirmed for Saturday evening

  02-10-2026 13:45 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  There is going to be an urgent partial closure of the Victoria line on Saturday evening to carry out repairs to the track outside Brixton station.
  Brixton tube station
  The fault, a points failure at the junction outside Brixton station, was detected a week ago and has meant trains crossing the junction had to slow down more than usual. The speed restriction means they can run only 24 trains per hour, instead of the usual 36 during rush hour. This has caused delays on the line because they can&rs
  
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