A total of 13 awards were presented to 10 winners at the 17th Telecom Asia Awards gala dinner in Jakarta last Wednesday night.
Globe Telecom came out on top in the best-of-the-best Best Asian Telecom Carrier category after being named a finalist in an unprecedented seven categories. The Philippines company’s Free Zone, which is powered by Google and gives prepaid users access to email and internet search without any data charges, was named the Most Innovative Telecom Project.
Japan’s NTT Communications celebrated the night with the Best Managed Services Provider and Best Cloud-based Service prizes. The company received high marks for its globally integrated platform and industry-leading capabilities in service automation.
SK Telecom CEO Sung Min Ha was voted Telecom CEO of the Year for pushing the company to the cutting edge of mobile technology, with the world’s first commercial launches of VoLTE and LTE-A. The South Korean cellco also picked up the Best Mobile Carrier award for the third year running.
Hong Kong Broadband Network reclaimed Best Broadband Carrier after missing out for two years to TM. XL Axiata again won the Best Emerging Markets Carrier award for its leadership and long-term view, which is reflected in its non-voice share of revenue being among the highest in the region.
YTL was recognized for its partnership with Google (using Google Apps and Chrome Book) to inject ICT into 10,000 schools, winning the Most Innovative Partnership Strategy award.
The Best Community Telecom Project prize went to Smart Communications for its support for help.PH – a global disaster response fund campaign. The Most Advanced Approach to CEM award went to Indosat for its iCITY, which leverages social media and an integrated platform to crowdsource customer support.
Equinix, which has the largest footprint of data center space, with over 950 networks available for interconnection and traffic exchange, again won the Best Data Center Services Provider while BT Global Services was awarded the Best International Carrier trophy for its global IPX offering, which has enabled rollout of innovative new wholesale services.
2014 Telecom Asia Awards full list of winners below:
- Best Asian Telecom Carrier- Globe Telecom
- Telecom CEO of the Year- Sung Min Ha, SK Telecom
- Best Mobile Carrier- SK Telecom
- Best Broadband Carrier- Hong Kong Broadband Networks
- Best Emerging Markets Carrier- XL Axiata
- Best Community Telecom Project- Smart Communications, help.PH — Global Disaster Response Fund Campaign
- Most Innovative Telecom Project- Globe-Google’s Free Zone
- Best Cloud-Based Service- NTT Communications Enterprise Cloud
- Most Innovative Partnership Strategy- The YTL-Google government school project
- Most Advanced Approach to CEM- Indosat, iCITYBest
- Data Center Services Provider- Equinix
- Best International Whole Carrier- BT Global Services
- Best Managed Services Provider- NTT Communications
Now in its 17th year, the awards are said to be the region’s longest-running and most prestigious telecom industry awards. They reward innovative and outstanding performance by Asian service providers and industry executives.
The Telecom Asia Awards selection is made by an independent panel of industry experts, who cast votes on the basis of innovation, financial performance, technology, market leadership and corporate governance.
The judging is conducted over two rounds, and the methodology varies slightly between segments.
In the first round, the 23 judges nominate their best performers in each category (except Data Centers, International Wholesale and Managed Services), where the candidates are asked to submit nominations. In the second round, the judges cast their votes on the shortlist of finalists, which is determined by Telecom Asia editors based on the nominations (both those from the judging panel and self-nominations).
