The maturing 5G ecosystem still has few ‘killer apps’. This award will be won by the product or initiative that is judged to have done the most to develop the business case for 5G. That could take the form of a technological or business innovation, so long as the entry clearly demonstrates a significant contribution to the 5G ecosystem.

While all generations of mobile technology have continued to evolve after their introduction, this seems especially true of 5G. We are already looking to 5G-Advanced, so this award will go to the company, technology or project that is judged to have done the most to advance 5G.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Most of the commercial use-cases associated with 5G are business applications. So this award will go to the product or service that is judged to represent the best application of contemporary telecoms technology in an enterprise setting. It would involve technologies other than 5G, but will need to demonstrate a significant degree of innovation.

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.

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.

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.

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 consumer cloud product that can demonstrate its benefit to the customers of operators.

Networks in the 5G era aspire to be ‘cloud native’ and operators are reliant on vendors to help them achieve that aim. The winner of this award will be the cloud technology or service that can demonstrate its practical and/or commercial benefit, as a technological enabler, to the telecoms industry and its customers.

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.

In the 5G era, the Radio Access Network has become the focus of renewed innovation. Most notably this has taken the form of Open RAN and Cloud RAN, but it doesn’t end there. This awards will go to the product, project or service that demonstrates the greatest contribution to innovation around the RAN.

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.

How best to monetize 5G remains a challenge to much of the telecoms industry, so proven commercial use-cases for the latest generation of wireless technology are worth their weight in gold. The winner of this awards will have done the best job of demonstrating how their product, project or service delivered significant return on 5G investments.

This category is specifically designed to recognise a telecoms project that came to its conclusion in 2022 or 2023. 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 final award is a catch-all for all types of telecoms excellence, from technological innovation to proven commercial success and everything in between. There are no constraints for entry into this category, making ideal for any product, initiative or service that doesn’t fit neatly into any of the others.