AUSTIN, Texas -- The 2016 Leading Lights awards winners have been announced at a gala dinner attended by hundreds of communications industry executives at the Hotel Ella 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 24/25.

The winners were chosen following the judging of hundreds of submissions in 26 categories, which this year included recognition for those companies making progress in 5G and transformation strategies as well as SDN, NFV, IoT and all of the traditional Leading Lights categories. The finalists were announced in April. (See Leading Lights 2016: The Finalists.)

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The latest additions to Light Reading's Hall of Fame were also announced at the awards dinner: You can find out who was inducted this year by watching our video, Light Reading Hall of Fame 2016.

We also announced the winners of the inaugural Women in Comms awards: To find out who picked up those awards, see Women in Comms' Leading Lights Awards Winners Revealed .

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.

Best New Product (Cable)
Awarded to the company that has developed a potentially market-leading product that, through engineering and technical excellence, enables the deployment of profitable next-generation cable services.

Winner: Technicolor -- HDR Distribution Solution

Best New Product (Mobile)
Awarded to the company that has developed a potentially market-leading product that, through engineering and technical excellence, enables the deployment of profitable next-generation mobile services.

Winner: Ericsson -- Gigabit LTE

Best New Product (Telecom)
Awarded to the company that has developed a potentially market-leading product that, through engineering and technical excellence, enables the deployment of profitable next-generation telecom services.

Winner: Lumentum Holdings -- Optical whiteboxes for SDN

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

Winner: AT&T -- Managed Internet Service on Demand

Most Innovative Enterprise Service
Awarded to the communications service provider (cable, fixed, mobile) that has launched the most innovative business service for enterprise corporate users during the past year.

Winner: Zayo -- FlexConnect

Most Innovative Wireless Service (3G, 4G, Carrier WiFi)
Awarded to the communications service provider that has launched the most innovative wireless/mobile service (2G, 3G, 4G, carrier WiFi) for its customers during the past year.

Winner: Boingo Wireless -- Sprint's Carrier Wi-Fi Roaming, Powered by Boingo

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

Winner: AT&T -- NetBond with Cloud Storage and Colocation

Most Innovative Ethernet/Optical Service
Awarded to the communications service provider (cable, fixed, mobile) that has launched the most innovative Carrier Ethernet or optical transport service for its customers during the past year.

Winner: Colt Technology Services Group -- Colt On Demand services platform

Most Innovative Video Service
Awarded to the communications service provider (cable, fixed, mobile) that has launched the most innovative video/TV service for its customers during the past year.

Winner: AT&T -- DirecTV 4K Ultra HD Service

Next page: The rest of the winners.

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 -- AT&T Managed Internet Service on Demand

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: Amdocs

Most Innovative SDN 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 during the past year.

Winner: Facebook

Most Innovative SDN Product Strategy (Vendor)
Awarded to the technology vendor that has devised the most innovative software defined networking (SDN) product strategy during the past year. This year we have decided to bestow this award on two companies, which have developed very different but equally compelling SDN Product Strategies.

Winner: Calix
Winner: Nokia

Most Innovative Security Strategy (Service Provider)
Awarded to the communications service provider (cable, fixed, mobile) that has unveiled the most innovative security strategy during the past year.

Winner: BT

Most Innovative Security Strategy (Vendor)
Awarded to the vendor that has unveiled the most innovative security product/platform strategy during the past year.

Winner: ECI Telecom

Most Innovative Gigabit Broadband Service
Awarded to the communications service provider (fixed, cable, utility, municipality) that has launched the most innovative Gigabit broadband service offering during the past year.

Winner: Electric Power Board of Chattanooga (EPB) -- 10Gig City Chattanooga

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

Winner: Ingenu -- Ingenu's Machine Network

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: Sensity Systems -- NetSense IoT Platform for Smart Cities

Most Innovative 5G Strategy *NEW*
Awarded to the company that has outlined and clearly communicated an innovative, market-leading 5G strategy.

Winner: AT&T

Outstanding Transformation Strategy (Service Provider) *NEW*
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 potential and competitiveness in the coming years.

Winner: Deutsche Telekom

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: Mellanox Technologies

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

Winner: Accedian Networks

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

Winner: Openet Telecom

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: Affirmed Networks

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: ADVA Optical Networking

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: Cisco Systems/Ericsson -- Partnership and other acquisitions

— Ray Le Maistre, , Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading