Leading Lights 2019: The Winners
DENVER, Colo. -- The 2019 Leading Lights Awards winners have been announced at a gala dinner attended by hundreds of communications industry executives at the Grand Hyatt Denver Hotel's Pinnacle Club here in the Mile High City. The awards were handed out on the eve of the Big 5G Event, which is being held at the Colorado Convention Center May 7-8.
The winners were chosen following the judging of hundreds of submissions in 22 categories, which this year included recognition for those companies making progress in 5G, AI/Analytics, edge computing, blockchain, SD-WAN, Telco Cloud and many more. The finalists were announced in April. (See Leading Lights 2019: The Finalists.)
The latest additions to Light Reading's Hall of Fame 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 2019.
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 Cable/Video 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, video, TV or multimedia services during the past year.
Winner: Broadpeak
Broadpeak wins for its nanoCDN Multicast ABR Low Latency & Device Synch (catchy name!), which tackles two of the biggest challenges facing OTT video – latency and multi-screen delivery synchronization.
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/WiFi/unlicensed) during the past year.
Winner: Parallel Wireless
Parallel Wireless wins for its Unified 2G/3G/4G/5G software, which embraces one of the key trends in mobile networking by helping to virtualize, automate and optimize cellular networks from 2G to 5G.
Most Innovative Telecoms Product (Optical/IP/Carrier Ethernet/FTTH)
Awarded to the company that has developed a potentially market-leading optical/IP/Ethernet product that, through engineering and technical excellence, enables the deployment of profitable next-generation telecom services.
Winner: Calix
Calix wins for its AXOS Intelligent Access Edge, a new addition to its AXOS platform for fixed broadband network operators that, with software functionality, eliminates the need for standalone devices for routing, subscriber management and aggregation.
Most Innovative AI/Analytics Strategy
Awarded to the company that has devised the most innovative strategy built around the development or use of AI/analytics capabilities during the past year.
Winner: Accedian
Accedian wins for its SkyLIGHT DataHUB IQ system, a cloud-native analytics platform that uses machine learning techniques to match key network and application performance indicators against other data sources and reveal anomalies.
Most Innovative Blockchain for Telecoms Strategy
Awarded to the company that has devised the most innovative blockchain-based strategy in the telecoms market during the past year.
Winner: Synchronoss Technologies
Synchronoss Technologies wins for its collaboration with SoftBank and TBCASoft on the development of a blockchain-enabled, secure cross-carrier payments service.
Most Innovative Business Cloud Service
Awarded to the communications service provider that has launched the most innovative business cloud service for enterprise and/or small or midsized corporate users during the past year.
Winner: Vonage
Vonage wins for Vonage Business Cloud, its cloud-native unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) that takes advantage of cloud computing and machine learning to deliver a modern service for enterprise customers.
Most Innovative SD-WAN Service
Awarded to the company that has launched the most innovative SD-WAN service for enterprise and/or small or midsized corporate users during the past year.
Winner: Teridion
Teridion wins for Teridion for Enterprise, a cloud WAN service built around Teridion Curated Routing, a deep learning-based approach to virtualized routing that addresses performance issues in "middle mile" connections.
Most Innovative SD-WAN Product Strategy (Vendor)
Awarded to the technology vendor that has devised the most innovative software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) product/platform strategy during the past year.
Winner: VMware
VMware wins for VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud – Network Edge, which is adding important functionality, such as compute, analytics and security, to network edge SD-WAN assets.
Next page: More winners
