Light Reading is delighted to announce the winners from hundreds of entries and dozens of finalists in the 20 categories comprising the 20th annual Leading Lights Awards.
The Leading Lights is Light Reading's flagship awards program, returning for its 20th year to recognize the top companies and their executives for outstanding achievements in the global communications industry. The Leading Lights finalists and winners present an exceptional snapshot of the technology, applications, services and innovation that help telecom, cable and cloud providers stand out.
Our judging panel contributed their opinions and subject-area expertise to help us arrive at our finalists and winners. The judges included Dell'Oro Group's Jeff Heynen, Stefan Pongratz, Siân Morgan and Jimmy Yu; Ookla's Mark Giles, Katherine Macdonald and Chip Strange; our Omdia colleagues James Crawshaw, Inderpreet Kaur, Roz Roseboro, Ian Redpath and Jaimie Lenderman; Core Analysis' Patrick Lopez; Canalys' Cynthia Chen; Opensignal's Sylwia Kechiche; Rosenblatt Securities' Mike Genovese; Vertical Systems Group's Erin Dunne; and our Heavy Reading colleagues Sterling Perrin, Ruth Brown and Gabriel Brown.
Light Reading's staff and contributing editors also helped with judging, presenting, writing, editing and keeping the whole program organized and moving along. Thanks goes to Jeff Baumgartner, Iain Morris, Mike Dano, Kelsey Ziser, Emily Warren, Nicole Ferraro, Tereza Krásová, Dawn Bushaus and Gigi Onag. Our staff and contributing copy editors for the project (and everything else) are Paul Rainford, Gin Martin, Grace Beck and Erin Barker. Pierre Landriau produced and edited our announcement video and AI technologies were only used to order lunch.
What you'll find below are the descriptions, finalists and winners of each category in this year's awards. The scoring margin between winners and finalists was razor thin in most categories, with sometimes only a half point deciding the winner. This is to say that finalists are listed again for a reason – every entrant making it this far should be very proud.
And now, here are the winners of the 2024 Leading Lights:
Most Innovative Optical Networking Product
Awarded to the optical systems vendor or optical components vendor that has provided the most innovative optical networking solution for service providers or webscale customers.
Finalists
Acacia – Delphi DSP ASIC
Adtran Networks SE – Coherent 100ZR Pluggable Series
Credo Technology Group – Dove 850 Linear Receive Optics (LRO) DSP
Infinera – ICE-X 800G multi-haul intelligent coherent pluggables
Lumentum – 800G ZR+ Transceivers
Marvell – Orion 800G Coherent Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
Precision OT – Genesee Dispersion Compensation ASIC
Qualcomm – 10G Fiber Gateway Platform
Winner
Infinera – ICE-X 800G multi-haul intelligent coherent pluggables
Most Innovative Routing and Switching Solution
Awarded to the vendor that has launched the most innovative hardware- or software-based routing and switching solution for network operators, enterprises, cloud networks or data center applications.
Finalists
DZS – Saber 2200 Coherent xHaul Ethernet transport switch
Juniper Networks – AI-Native Networking Platform
Marvell – Teralynx 10
Nokia – 7730 Service Interconnect Router (SXR)
RtBrick – FullStack
Winner
Nokia – 7730 Service Interconnect Router (SXR)
Most Innovative Service Provider Transport Product or Solution
Awarded to the vendor providing the most innovative transport solution for service provider customers. The range of applications could include satellite backhaul, microwave, mobile network fronthaul and backhaul, as well as traditional telecom WDM.
Finalists
BroadbandOne – Telco-as-a-Service (TaaS)
Infinera – ICE-X 400G Single Fiber
IP Infusion – OcNOS 6.4
Marvell – COLORZ 800 ZR/ZR+ Pluggable Module
Nokia – Coherent Routing Solution for IP-Optical Network Convergence
ZTE – Pluggable 800G OTN Solution
Winner
BroadbandOne – Telco-as-a-Service (TaaS)
Most Innovative Telecom Software Product or Solution
Awarded to the vendor providing the most innovative solution that helps CSPs evolve and improve their IT back office (OSS/BSS/CX), making their networks more efficient and allowing them to deliver a better customer experience.
Finalists
Amdocs – amAIz
Infinera – Open Wave Manager
Jio Platforms Ltd. – JioBrain
Mavenir – Digital Enablement Platform
Optiva – Optiva BSS Platform (OBP) on Google Marketplace
Rakuten Symphony – Rakuten Site Manager
Tata Elxsi – Sky DNE (Digital Network Enabler)
Totogi – Charging-as-a-Service
Vonage – Network Registry
ZTE – uSmartNet
Winner
Totogi – Charging-as-a-Service
Most Innovative Test & Measurement Product or Solution
Awarded to the systems vendor with the most innovative new solution that aids communications service providers in network testing, measurement, monitoring or assurance.
Finalists
Keysight – AresONE 800GE Dual Interface Model-M
Ookla – Downdetector Explorer with AI-Powered Situation Reports
RADCOM – Virtual Test Drive
RouteThis – Certify
VIAVI – INX 760 Probe Microscope
Witbe – Quality of Experience and Data Usage Benchmarking Technology
Winner
VIAVI – INX 760 Probe Microscope
Most Innovative RAN Product or Solution
Awarded to the vendor with the most innovative radio access network (RAN) product or solution that was either launched or significantly improved during the past year.
Finalists
Cohere Technologies and Vodafone – Universal Spectrum Multiplier Software
Corning – Everon 5G Enterprise Radio Access Network (ERAN) 620
EdgeQ – Base Station on a Chip
Globalstar – XCOM Radio Access Network (RAN)
Radisys, Lockheed Martin and Intel – 5G Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB)
Tejas Networks – TJ1400 Ultra-Converged Baseband Product
ZTE – UBR Pioneer
Winner
ZTE – UBR Pioneer
Most Innovative Broadband Product or Solution
Awarded to the company that has launched the most innovative new product or solution to enable the delivery or enhance the user experience of high-speed broadband access.
Finalists
Amazon – eero Max 7
ATX Networks – GigaXtend Orchestrator
Calix – Calix Broadband Platform Intelligent Access Solution
Gfiber – 20 Gig + Wi-Fi 7
Harmonic – Beacon Intelligent Speed Maximizer
Nokia – Next generation multi-PON toolkit
Tarana Wireless – Gigabit 1 (G1) in 6GHz
Vecima Networks – Entra EN9000 GAP Node
Winner
Calix – Calix Broadband Platform Intelligent Access Solution
Most Innovative Cloud Product or Service
Awarded to the service provider, cloud provider or vendor that has launched the most innovative cloud-native, communications-focused product or service during the past year.
Finalists
Arrcus – FlexMCN Egress Cost Control (ECC)
Console Connect – Edge SIM
Extreme Networks – ExtremeCloud IQ
IBM – Hybrid Cloud Mesh
Juniper Networks – AI-Native Networking Platform
Nokia – Corteca Home Controller
Rakuten Symphony – Rakuten Cloud
Titan.ium Platform and Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier
Wind River – Wind River Studio
Winner
Wind River – Wind River Studio
Company of the Year
Awarded to the company (public or private) that stands out from its competitors, innovates constantly, has a track record of earnings stability and has the potential to outperform the market.
Finalists
Amdocs
KT
Singtel
SK Telecom
Vecima Networks
Zayo Group
Winner
KT
Executive of the Year
Awarded to the senior executive who has demonstrated decisive leadership, good judgement and has stood out in the past year as someone who made an unmistakable difference in their company or business unit.
Finalists
Arpit Joshipura, GM, SVP, Linux Foundation
Dinni Jain, CEO, GFiber
Elif Yenihan Kaya, Director, Network Capabilities, Turkcell
Bruce Kelley, SVP and CTO, Netscout
Woojune Kim, President and Head of Networks Business, Samsung
Igor Leprince, Group CEO, Boldyn Networks
Bill Major, CEO, FiberLight, LLC
Rajesh Vashist, Chairman and CEO, SiTime Corp.
Winner
Woojune Kim, President and Head of Networks Business, Samsung
AI/Machine Learning
Finalists
6D Technologies – AI-driven Customer Value Management Platform
Ciena – Blue Planet Network Health Predictor
Huawei and China Mobile – ADN Net Master
Jio Platforms Ltd. – Forecasting Network Capacity with JioBrain
Mavenir – Network Intelligence as a Service (NIaaS)
SK Telecom, Nokia, NTT and NTT Docomo – AI-native Air Interface (AI-AI)
SK Telecom – On-Device AI for Smartphone Power Saving
ZTE and DITO – 3D Radio Composer Solution
Winner
SK Telecom – On-Device AI for Smartphone Power Saving
Bridging the Digital Divide
Finalists
Baicells – Connecting the Tohono O'odham Tribe in Arizona
Calix – Broadband Academy & The Broadband Success Playbook for Tribes
Conexon, Washington EMC, Tri-County Electric Cooperative – Conexon Connect Fiber Broadband Impact
DZS, Connect2First, Irby Utilities – City of Cabot Fiber Network
Fibertime Networks, Nokia and VulaCoin – South African Internet Access
HFCL – Baidabettu and Baslambi Villages
Hughes and Mexico's SICT – Isla Santa Margarita Smart Village Project
Hughes, Microsoft and Colombia's MICT – Juntas de Internet: Connectivity Communities
Tarana Wireless and Choice Broadband – Navajo Nation project
Veea – Veea Digital Divide Solution for Argamukti, Indonesia
Winner
Conexon, Washington EMC, Tri-County Electric Cooperative – Conexon Connect Fiber Broadband Impact
Customer Experience
Finalists
Arelion – OSTTRA's Ethernet Services
Comba Telecom and Highline – Viracopos International Airport's 5G Indoor Network
DZS and UScellular – Self-Install 5G CPE
Frontier Communications – Marcus Communications' Business Fiber
HFCL – Customer Loyalty
PearlComm and Conexon – Pearl River Valley EPA Fiber Network
Spectrum Enterprise – Texas State Aquarium
Winner
Spectrum Enterprise – Texas State Aquarium
Network Energy Efficiency
Finalists
Amdocs and Claro Argentina – Mobile Network Energy Efficiency
Mavenir – Energy-Efficient 5G UPF
Nokia Mobile Networks – Virtual Power Plant Solution
SK Telecom, Intel and Nokia – AI-Assisted Network Energy Efficiency Solutions
Winner
Mavenir – Energy-Efficient 5G UPF
Networked Edge
Finalists
Graphiant and Rampart CIO – New Network Edge
Qwilt, Cirion – Media Delivery for Content Publishers in Latin America
Rakuten Symphony – Stateful Edge with Rakuten Cloud
Singtel – Paragon for Telcos
Winner
Qwilt, Cirion – Media Delivery for Content Publishers in Latin America
Private Networks
Finalists
Anterix – 900 MHz Private Wireless Ecosystem for Utilities
Nokia, Solis Tower de Brasil – Vera Cruz do Xingu Farm
Trilogy NextGen, Microsoft and Ericsson – TBN Studio
Winner
Nokia, Solis Tower de Brasil – Vera Cruz do Xingu Farm
RAN Deployment
Finalists
Freshwave – Princess Alexandra Hospital
Mavenir – Paradise Mobile
P.I. Works – Telus
Skylo – DDS Satellite Service
Winner
Skylo – DDS Satellite Service
Network and Service Automation
Finalists
Airties – Airties Orbit
Ciena – Spectrum Defragmentation App
Huawei and China Mobile Zhejiang – ICN Master Solution
Nokia – Multi-Access Network Slicing
Radisys, Dense Air and EdgeQ, Inc. – Millennium Lakeside Garage Network Pilot
ZTE and China Mobile Fujian – Network Optimization
Winner
Radisys, Dense Air and EdgeQ, Inc. – Millennium Lakeside Garage Network Pilot
IoT
Finalists
Cradlepoint – City of Las Vegas Smart Park
Infovista and Italgas – Automated Smart Meter Monitoring and Assurance
Skylo, Murata and Sony – 5G-Ready Narrowband IoT Over Satellite
ZTE, China Mobile and Guangdong Limited – China Southern Power Grid (Shenzhen)
Winner
Cradlepoint – City of Las Vegas Smart Park
Driving Digital Transformation
Finalists
Boingo Wireless – MTA, LIRR Cellular Expansion
Comba Telecom – Smart Transport Service
LotusFlare and Globe Telecom – GFiber Prepaid
Matrixx Software – One New Zealand LaunchPad MVNE
Spectrum Enterprise – Paul Miller Ford
Winner
Boingo Wireless – MTA, LIRR Cellular Expansion
Congratulations to all the winners and finalists and thanks to everyone who entered the Leading Lights.
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