Awards

As the transformation of the network into a software environment progresses rapidly, so do the opportunities to use artificial intelligence (AI) to augment it. The most significant AI advance in a telecoms context will win this award. This could include network management, customer experience management or general applications.

With the evolution of 5G core rapidly moving into its full, standalone phase, the time has come for the telecoms industry to seize the enormous potential of 5G. This award will go to the operator or vendor that has demonstrated the most innovative approach to using 5G in order to bring products and services to market. Evidence of this could be commercial or technological, but the winning entry will need to show it has used 5G to make a significant difference to its customers.

The management, optimisation and security of networks is becoming ever more automated as their complexity increases. This award will be won by the product, project or outcome that demonstrates the best use of automation in a telecoms context. We will also consider related automation initiatives such as autonomous vehicles.

We’re three years into the 5G era but the pace of innovation shows no sign of slowing, as the endless search for ROI continues. This award will go to the telecoms vendor that has developed the best new technology or service that raises the bar for 5G. The winning entry could involve entirely new features or just more efficient use of existing ones, but will need to demonstrate a significant contribution to the advancement of 5G on the whole.

Digital transformation is a broad concept encompassing all the ways in which businesses can move their products, processes, communication and underlying culture into the digital age. In the context of telecoms this has become especially critical in the smartphone era as consumer expectations have rapidly shifted in the digital direction. This award will be won by the project that has done most to bring about digital transformation in an organisation and can best demonstrate the resulting benefits.

The telecoms industry is ultimately about operators (or carriers as they’re sometimes called) so it seems only right that they be recognised in these awards. The winner will be the operator that can best demonstrate significant achievement over the past couple of years by whichever KPIs you want it to be judged. These could include business growth, technological achievement or product innovation.

Telecoms consumers are becoming increasingly demanding when it comes to the value, flexibility and relevance of their communications services. For telecoms companies BSS is the frontline technology for interacting with their customers and therefore is more business-critical than ever. Meanwhile, it’s also vital that OSS provides the agility to allow operators to meet demand. This award will go the BSS and/or OSS initiative that demonstrates the greatest innovation and commercial benefit to its users.

Combating climate change, enhancing climate resilience and developing adaptive capabilities are no longer nice-to-haves. This award will go to the product, project or outcome that best acts as an enabler of change to the impacts of climate change or can demonstrate capabilities to avert or mitigate risks or raises awareness and enhances the industry’s understanding of the problem.

A surprising proportion of the global population still have limited access to communication technologies, which have been consistently shown to improve independence, productivity and standard of living once acquired. Judges will be looking for evidence of uptake within unconnected communities and the benefits provided as well as innovation in the use of the network, equipment, products, solutions or service provision.

Traditional telecoms infrastructure involving cables, towers and exchanges is now just one part of the digital infrastructure puzzle. Today, telcos have to think as much about data centres, cloud-native software and novel forms of investment. This new award will be won by the organisation or project that has shown itself to significantly advance the field of digital infrastructure through exceptional technological, logistical or financial innovation

As the concept of digital transformation matures, so does the understanding of what it really means in a telecoms context. This award will be won by the concept, product or project that demonstrates the greatest innovation around that concept. Unlike the digital transformation project category pre-commercial projects can apply for this award, but you will need to demonstrate how it will eventually be commercialised.

This award recognises excellence in the field of residential, wholesale or enterprise fixed broadband. A successful entry will demonstrate how network innovations are delivering new levels of service quality for customers; generating new revenue streams or business models; or disrupting competitive markets. Ideal entrants would be from ISPs, cable operators, fibre providers or network solutions vendors.

NFV and SDN have rapidly moved from concept to trial to real-world implementation. Virtualization is a cornerstone of the next generation of telecoms technology and the time to invest in it is now. This award will be won by the virtualization initiative or project that is shown to have done the most to move things forward in the area of virtualized network functions and advance the general cause of virtualization in the context of telecoms.

As the Internet of Things matures, this award will recognise any initiative that develops IoT in either a consumer or industrial setting. Successful entries are likely to be those that demonstrate significant advancements in the technology of IoT or those that realised significant commercial benefits. Examples of IoT implementations include: smart home, connected cars and Industry 4.0.

5G has made the cloud more important than ever for the telecoms industry and telcos aren’t just using the cloud to manage their networks, they’re increasingly looking to provide cloud services to their customers. The winner of this award will be the cloud technology or service that can demonstrate its practical and/or commercial benefit to the telecoms industry and its customers, whether that’s at a technological enabler or as a marketable product.

As the telecoms industry becomes ever more complex, CSPs are increasingly turning to managed services to help them stay on top of it. This award will be won by the entry that can demonstrate innovation in managed service provision resulting in the most significant benefit to the customer. This could be any kind of managed service and any kind of telecoms customer.

Telecommunications is revolutionising the way the world handles money from payments, to credit, to banking and every year there are significant breakthroughs in this area. The Mobile Financial Services Mastery award will be presented to the company, product or initiative that demonstrates the greatest innovation in the provision of financial services via telecommunications networks and/or mobile devices.

In the past year or two Open RAN has rapidly evolved from an emerging buzzword to a core strategic tenet for many mobile network operators. A key feature of Open RAN is the opening up of the RAN ecosystem to many new stakeholders so this is a natural new category for this year. The winner of this award will have demonstrated significant contribution to the Open RAN ecosystem, from a technological, product, commercial or project direction.

Arguably the single most successful 5G use-case so far has been the boom in private networks. Unique technologies within 5G, coupled with all the new spectrum now available, have opened up this market to a wide range of stakeholders. The winner of this new category will be a company, team or project that demonstrates it has been at the cutting edge of the private networks space, which could be from a technical, commercial or specific project perspective.

This category is specifically designed to recognise a telecoms project that came to its conclusion in 2020 or 2021. No concepts, product launches or works-in-progress will be accepted, only completed projects. The winner will be the one that can demonstrate the best business outcome at its conclusion, be that commercial, technological or whatever other KPI works for you.

Security frailties continue to dominate the headlines, as such this category will award excellence in cyber threat mitigation for telecoms operators. Entries will demonstrate excellence in fields such as SS7 security, protection against fraudulent activity, DDoS mitigation, data protection, cloud security and everything in between. Judges will be looking to understand the threats prevented, the impact to business and the technologies utilised to defend networks.

If it wasn’t for their marketing teams, most telecoms products and initiatives would languish in anonymity. So for the first time this year we have decided it’s time they were acknowledge alongside the other specialists that make our industry what it is. The winners of this award will have demonstrated exceptional value add from a marketing perspective, which resulted in significant business benefit to their team and company

This award focuses on any commercial or technological initiatives that have resulted in a significant improvement in communications service delivery. This category is unconstrained by technology type and is designed to reward any innovation in the telecoms space. Judges are looking for projects yielding substantial business gain to the CSP community.

Ready to enter? Click below to access our secure platform and submit your entries for the 2023 Glotel Awards