The fog in Amsterdam may have tried to dampen the proceedings, but the brightness of the wholesale telecoms industry shone out last night, at the 2011 Capacity Awards.
There were 11 awards celebrating innovation, vision and excellence across the global and regional wholesale industry. The battle to win was, as always, hard fought and generated plenty of lively debate from our judging panel, which consisted of the senior editorial team of Capacity magazine and a panel of telecoms analysts and industry experts.
The awards were sponsored by DE-CIX and details of the shortlist for each category are listed below:
Best pan-European wholesale offering:
TeliaSonera won for its extensive network reach and the quality of service to its European customers.
Best CEE wholesale offering:
Pantel won for its experience in customer management and a broad network from Turkey to the UK.
Best Middle East wholesale offering:
Etisalat won for its history of service and a busy 2011 which saw the operational launch of its multi-service hub.
Best African wholesale offering:
Gateway Communications won for reminding us that satellite is still the workhorse of emerging markets telecoms, connecting millions of Africans to each other and to the world.
Best Asian wholesale offering:
Pacnet won for really showing leadership and excellent use and deployment of asset – a great wholesale vision and service.
Best North American wholesale offering:
AT&T won for its various Switched Ethernet products, which have been well used by wholesale carriers and rated as well admired by customers in our research.
Best Latin American wholesale offering:
Level 3 won for setting the gold standard for wholesale and enterprise services in the region, and a portfolio that goes way beyond transport.
Best Global wholesale offering:
Tata Communications won for a strong portfolio of wholesale services and for reaching out over the past years to build cables to support growth in the emerging economies.
Best market innovation:
Tinet/Neutral Tandem won for cleverly setting up a worldwide ‘Ethercloud’ allowing the company to partner globally.
Best newcomer:
Tawasul won for providing a One-Stop Shop for enterprises and international telcos looking for connectivity in the Middle East.
Judges Award:
Deutsche Telekom ICSS won for its Wifi mobilise solution – an innovative solution for new data offload, international roaming and inter-standard traffic management.
As always, winners were thrilled to be recognised for their achievements over the last year. Scott Sullivan, VP of strategy at Etisalat, said he was absolutely delighted to win the award. “This is the fourth year in a row we won this and it shows the resilience and the dedication of the people that work at Etisalat as the reason why it is such an amazing time for Middle Eastern communications.”
Someone else to frequently grace the stage at the Capacity Awards was Mike van den Bergh, CEO of Gateway. He said: “I think it’s a tremendous achievement and it’s the fourth year in a row. It shows the commitment to Africa and specialising in Africa actually makes a difference so we are very pleased.”
Brendan Ives, VP sales and marketing at TeliaSonera said, “It’s a fantastic recognition for the hard work that has gone in from the team. We would like to thank Capacity for the recognition.”
Everyone at Capacity was delighted to bring recognition for these winners to the market, and would like to thank everyone – including our sponsor, our judges and everyone who submitted an award – for taking the time to support the Capacity Awards 2011.
