Find out which companies have landed this year's Leading Lights Awards.

May 15, 2017

6 Min Read
Leading Lights 2017: The Winners

AUSTIN, Texas -- The 2017 Leading Lights Awards winners have been announced at a gala dinner attended by hundreds of communications industry executives at Brazos Hall here in Austin. The dinner was held on the eve of the Big Communications Event (BCE), which is being held at the Austin Convention Center May 16, 2017.

The winners were chosen following the judging of hundreds of submissions in 23 categories, which this year included recognition for those companies making progress in 5G strategy, digital enablement and technology vision as well as NFV, IoT, SDN and all of the traditional Leading Lights categories. The finalists were announced in April. (See Leading Lights 2017: The Finalists.)

The latest additions to Light Reading's Hall of Fame and this year's Women in Comms (WiC) awards were also announced at the dinner. You can find out who was inducted into the Hall of Fame this year by watching our video, Light Reading Hall of Fame 2017. To see who won this year's WiC awards, see Congratulations to WiC's Newest Leading Lights.

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There are a lot of winners to announce in this year's Leading Lights: Check out the first tranche of winners below and the remainder on the following page.

Most Innovative New Cable Product or Service
Awarded to the company that has developed a potentially market-leading product, application or strategy that has enabled the launch, deployment or creation of innovative, profitable cable services during the past year.

Winner: Calix -- AXOS E3-2 Intelligent Node


Most Innovative Video/Multimedia Product or Service
Awarded to the company that has developed a potentially market-leading product, application or strategy that has enabled the launch, deployment or creation of innovative, profitable video/TV/audio/multimedia services during the past year.

Winner: SK Telecom -- Oksusu


Most Innovative Mobile/Wireless Product or Service
Awarded to the company that has developed a potentially market-leading product, application or strategy that has enabled the launch, deployment or creation of innovative, profitable mobile/wireless services (4G/pre-5G/WiFi/unlicensed) during the past year.

Winner: Qualcomm Technologies -- Snapdragon X16 Modem


Most Innovative Telecoms Product or Service (Fixed/Carrier Ethernet/Optical)
Awarded to the company that has developed a potentially market-leading product, application or strategy that has enabled the launch, deployment or creation of innovative, profitable fixed-line residential, business or wholesale voice or data services.

Winner: Cisco Systems -- Catena


Most Innovative Enterprise Service/SMB Service
Awarded to the communications service provider (cable, fixed, mobile) that has launched the most innovative business service for enterprise and/or small or medium-sized corporate users during the past year.

Winner: Equinix -- Data Hub


Most Innovative Cloud Service
Awarded to the communications or IT service provider that has launched the most innovative cloud service (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS) for its customers during the past year.

Winner: AT&T -- ECOMP (Enhanced Control Orchestration Management and Policy)


Most Innovative NFV Deployment Strategy (Network/Data Center Operator)
Awarded to the network or data center operator that has devised the most innovative network functions virtualization (NFV) strategy during the past year.

Winner: AT&T -- NFV deployment with AT&T FlexWare


Most Innovative NFV Product Strategy (Vendor)
Awarded to the technology vendor that has devised the most innovative network functions virtualization (NFV) product strategy during the past year.

Winner: ADVA Optical Networking -- Ensemble SmartWAN


Most Innovative SDN/SD-WAN Deployment Strategy (Network/Data Center Operator)
Awarded to the network or data center operator that has devised the most innovative software-defined networking (SDN) strategy, including software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), during the past year.

Winner: Colt Technology Services


Most Innovative SDN/SD-WAN Product Strategy (Vendor)
Awarded to the technology vendor that has devised the most innovative software-defined networking (SDN) product strategy, including software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), during the past year.

Winner: ADTRAN -- ADTRAN Mosaic


Most Innovative Security Strategy
Awarded to the communications service provider, systems integrator or technology developer that has unveiled the most innovative security strategy during the past year.

Winner: Mocana -- Mocana IoT Security Platform


Most Innovative Gigabit/Ultra-Broadband Service
Awarded to the communications service provider that has launched the most innovative Gigabit/Ultra-Broadband (UBB) service offering during the past year.

Winner: Starman Eesti AS -- 10-gigabit EPON service

Next page: The rest of the winners.

The rest of the winners

Most Innovative IoT/M2M Strategy (Service Provider)
Awarded to the communications service provider that has unveiled the most innovative Internet of Things/Machine to Machine (IoT/M2M) strategy during the past year.

Winner: AT&T


Most Innovative IoT/M2M Strategy (Vendor)
Awarded to the vendor that has unveiled the most innovative Internet of Things/Machine to Machine (IoT/M2M) strategy during the past year.

Winner: Nokia


Most Innovative 5G Technology Strategy (Vendor)
Awarded to the company that has outlined and clearly communicated an innovative, market-leading 5G networking technology development strategy during the past year.

Winner: Nokia -- Nokia 5G FIRST


Outstanding Transformation Strategy (Service Provider)
Awarded to the communications service provider that has devised and implemented a transformation strategy of any kind (business, technical, cultural) that will improve its business

Winner: Boingo Wireless -- Boingo's Transformation Story


Outstanding Components Vendor
Awarded to the components vendor that stands out from its competitors, innovates constantly, helps set the industry trends, makes investors proud, and makes employees happy.

Winner: Oclaro


Outstanding Test & Measurement Vendor
Awarded to the communications networking test and measurement, monitoring or assurance systems vendor that stands out from its competitors, innovates constantly, helps set the industry trends, makes investors proud, and makes employees happy.

Winner: Viavi Solutions


Outstanding Digital Enablement Vendor
Awarded to the next-generation OSS/BSS/analytics/digital commerce systems vendor that stands out from its competitors, innovates constantly, helps set the industry trends, makes investors proud, and makes employees happy.

Winner: CENX


Outstanding Communications Technology Vision
Awarded to the company with the most innovative, transformative strategic vision for the global communications sector that harnesses next-generation technologies including (but not limited to) artificial intelligence/machine learning, fog networking, robotics, drones, virtual or augmented reality and any other developments that will shape a 5G world.

Winner: Amdocs


Company of the Year (Private)
Awarded to the privately held firm that stands out from its competitors, innovates constantly, makes investors proud, and makes employees happy.

Winner: Vlocity


Company of the Year (Public)
Awarded to the publicly listed firm that stands out from its competitors, innovates constantly, makes investors proud, and makes employees happy.

Winner: GTT Communications


Best Deal Maker
Awarded to the company that has consistently demonstrated good timing, judgment, and execution in high-profile acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures, and other multi-company financial arrangements.

Winner: Amdocs

To see who won this year's Women in Comms awards, see Congratulations to WiC's Newest Leading Lights.

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