London's iconic BT tower was caught broadcasting a Windows 7 error message to the masses for many hours. Late on Saturday, the classic “Choose an operating system to start or press TAB to select a tool” ran across the digital display.
It's a little too late for April fools, so it appears this message was genuine and simply went unfixed or unnoticed. Reports suggest the message was up for almost a day before BT engineers resolved the issue.
“A technical issue caused the infoband on the BT Tower to display an error message which has now been fixed,” is all BT told ITV news.
A Tall History
The BT tower is far from the oldest tower in London, built in the 1960s, but it was the tallest in the UK from 1964 to 1980. It was previously known as the GPO Tower, Post Office Tower, and Telecom Tower.
View from the top of Broadcasting House.
The BT Tower needs resetting!I'd love to think they're in their own endless helpline queue nightmare, waiting for a technician…#karma#haveyoutriedturningitoffandon@BTCare pic.twitter.com/Rzl4xu93Sd
— Robert Coxwell (@RTCoxwell) April 6, 2019
The building contains the TV Network switching center for television, advertising, and satellite services. It's full-color LED display was installed in 2009 to replace a projection-based system from the early 2000s. Due to its history, it's currently a Grade II listed building.
Needless to say, thousands would have seen the message floating above London's skyline at 189 meters. In fact, the tower has previously been used to display a countdown to the Olympics and various royal family announcements.
For customers, it's validation that BT's inability to fix basic problems just doesn't just apply to its broadband service. True or not, it's interesting that the company is still using Windows 7, given the fact that support ends for the OS soon.