UPDATED – If you haven't already entered this year's Leading Lights awards, time's running out – the deadline for entries is midnight PST on Friday, April 3.

The original deadline was March 20 but we have been contacted by many companies that need just that extra bit of time for approvals processes and fine tuning, so make good use of the time people, because there will be no further extensions!

Light Reading's annual awards, which celebrate the innovation, hard work and business success of the communications industry's leading companies, teams and individuals, comprises a number of ever-popular "Best Product/Service" awards and a range of categories that recognize outstanding innovation in key areas such as 5G, network security, SD-WAN, telco cloud/virtualization, test and measurement, edge computing and more.

And this year, we've added a new category:

In total we have 21 categories, so there's sure to be at least one that's relevant to your company.

But that's not all. As ever, we're seeking nominations for the Light Reading Hall of Fame, which recognizes those individuals, both the famous and the infamous, who have made a notable contribution to the global communications sector. Among those inducted in previous years are Steve Jobs, Bob Metcalfe, John Chambers, Brian Roberts, Kris Rinne, Irwin Jacobs, Larissa Herda, James Crowe, Niklas Zennström, Hedy Lamarr, Bernie Ebbers, Basil Alwan, Mark Zuckerberg, John Legere and Lightworks Lou.

Check out our video announcing last year's Hall of Fame inductees:

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You can see the full list of awards categories, details about how to enter and a link to our FAQ document, at the Leading Lights 2020 home page.

Please pay close attention to the rules, and be sure to keep within the 300-word limit of the main pitch of your submission -- we'll be counting!

And here's a critical piece of information: products, services and strategic directives must have been announced on or after March 1, 2019, to qualify for consideration. So if it was launched in 2017 (yes, you know who you are from last year…) or even in February 2019, then it won't qualify. So please be sure to read the guidelines and check the FAQ document too.

The awards are judged by the Light Reading editorial team with help from the Heavy Reading analyst team. The deadline for entries is Friday, March 20, 2020. The shortlists will be announced in late April and the winners announced at an awards dinner that, as ever, will be held the night before we open the doors to the annual Big 5G Event.

To see who picked up the awards in 2019 and then over-indulged at the bar, see: