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Light Reading is delighted to announce the winners chosen from 151 finalists across the 30 categories comprising the 22nd annual Leading Lights Awards.
On behalf of Light Reading's editors, it's my pleasure to conclude this year's Leading Lights Awards by announcing the winners.
The Leading Lights is Light Reading's flagship awards program, recognizing the top companies and their executives for outstanding achievements in the global communications industry. The awards program's finalists and winners provide a nice snapshot of the innovation, technology prowess and exceptional services that help telecom, cable and cloud providers stand out.
We grew the program to 30 categories this year. These covered new, emerging technologies like agentic AI and network APIs, as well as classic communications infrastructure like optical systems and components, data center networking, satellite and non-terrestrial networks, and broadband equipment.
Our judging panel contributed their opinions and subject-area expertise to help us select our finalists and winners. The judges included Dell'Oro Group's Jeff Heynen, Siân Morgan and Jimmy Yu; our Omdia colleagues Ruth Brown, Gabriel Brown, James Crawshaw, Jim Frey, Jim Hodges, Inderpreet Kaur, Jaimie Lenderman, Sterling Perrin and Roz Roseboro; Recon Analytics' Joe Salesky, Daryl Schoolar and XJ Wang; Opensignal's Fiona Armstrong-Mills and Sylwia Kechiche; Core Analysis' Patrick Lopez; AvidThink's Roy Chua; Finegold & Associates' Ed Finegold; Ryan Jeffery from Passionate About OSS; Vertical Systems Group's Erin Dunne; and Ookla's Kerry Baker, Mike Dano and Katherine Macdonald. The first-round judges included Light Reading's staff editors, contributing editor Dawn Bushaus, and our Informa TechTarget editorial colleagues, including Armita Satari of Telecoms.com; InformationWeek's Kelsey Ziser; TechTarget's Jen English, Sharon Shea, Paul Crocetti and Sue Fogarty; and CIO Dive's Nicole Laskowski.
In our judging process, each judge scored the entries assigned and each claim was checked to the best of our ability against our reporting, submitted data and anything else we could find in the public domain. As such, many entries that didn't win simply failed to prove what they claimed with numbers, deployments, references or anything we could verify. The judges' scores were averaged, their comments were considered and a round of final checks to each category's highest-scoring entries was done to vet the ultimate winners.
Below are the descriptions, finalists and winners for each category in this year's awards. The scoring margin between winners and finalists is slim in several categories. If you are a finalist, you should be very proud.
Editor's note: In some categories, we list the finalists as our editors succinctly described the entry. However, for winners, we use the entry's proper name as given by the companies or individuals who submitted it.
Awarded to the company – public or private – that has distinguished itself from competitors through consistent execution, relentless innovation and demonstrated business momentum. This award recognizes organizations that don't just respond to industry change but drive it.
Finalists
Amphenol Network Solutions
Credo
Fiber Broadband Association
LotusFlare
Nordic Semiconductor
SiTime Corp.
Vecima
Winner: Credo
Credo's organic growth was off the charts this year and its aggressive schedule of new product launches combined the innovation and execution that this category was asking for.
Awarded to the senior executive who led with clarity and conviction in a year that demanded both. This is someone whose vision and decisions helped moved the conversation forward for their company, partners and peers.
Anurag Dhingra, SVP and GM, Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration, Cisco
Nicolas Girard, CEO, OXIO
Stephen Rose, CEO, Render Networks
Gary Smith, President and CEO, Ciena
Åsa Tamsons, SVP and Head of Enterprise Wireless Solutions, Ericsson
Rajesh Vashist, Chairman and CEO, SiTime
Winner: Gary Smith, President and CEO, Ciena
Smith's steady leadership during an explosive growth phase and new product launch helped return Ciena to the S&P 500 in February, 17 years after it was dropped. He's spent the year arguing that the AI buildout was a network problem while many others were obsessing over GPUs.
Awarded to the vendor or service provider with the most innovative product or solution that deploys autonomous AI agents to perform complex, multi-step tasks across communications networks or telecom business operations.
Altice Labs – NOSSIS Genius SENTINEL & NOSSIS Genius ARISE
Amdocs – Amdocs Cognitive Core
Comviva – MobiLytix Marketing Studio
Infovista – VistAI
InterDigital – AI-enabled Teleoperation
Kentik – Kentik AI Advisor
Netcracker Technology – Netcracker Agentic AI Solution
Nokia – Agentic AI-powered network slicing
Qualcomm Technologies – Qualcomm Dragonwing Agentic RAN Management Service
Rakuten Symphony – Rakuten AI for Telecom
Winner: Altice Labs – NOSSIS Genius SENTINEL & NOSSIS Genius ARISE
Altice Labs' agents genuinely cooperate. Sentinel learns a behavioral baseline for each network element, and Arise runs a reasoning layer over its own causal graph, flagging uncertainty rather than asserting a root cause it can't support.
Awarded to the company that has launched the most innovative new product to enable the delivery of high-speed broadband access. Eligible products may include fiber, cable, DSL or fixed wireless access technologies and the platforms that support them.
AOI – Quantum18
Calix – Calix One Access with 50G-PON
Harmonic – SeaStar Optical Node
Inseego – MiFi PRO M4
Tarana Wireless – Tarana G2
Vecima – Entra ERM4 Series
Vecima – Entra XGS-PON
WEI – WEI Connect
Winner: Tarana Wireless – Tarana G2
G2 runs on silicon Tarana spent 12 years and $400 million building rather than repurposed 3GPP or Wi-Fi chips. It provided the best evidence in the category, including a 9.32-mile link measured at three configurations and a production sector of 186 users where RF utilization fell 16% after the upgrade.
Awarded to the service provider, cloud provider or vendor that has launched the most innovative cloud-native, communications-focused product or solution during the past year. Eligible entries should demonstrate how cloud principles – scalability, flexibility and automation – are applied to advance communications services or network operations.
Calix – SmartMDU
NetLync – Entitlements-as-a-Service Rakuten Symphony – Rakuten Cloud
Singtel – RE:AI
TNS – TNS Hosted Cloud Connect
Vecima Networks – Entra vCMTS
Winner: Singtel – RE:AI RE:AI is the only entry in the category where the carrier is the cloud provider rather than a cloud consumer, selling GPU capacity, models and platform services out of Singtel's data centers. One judge described it as a "full AI ecosystem from subsea cables to compute."
Awarded to the vendor, service provider or platform developer with the most innovative product or platform that exposes network capabilities as programmable APIs for developers, enterprises or other operators. Eligible entries may include CAMARA-aligned solutions, Open Gateway implementations, network-as-code platforms or any product that enables third parties to build services on top of network capabilities.
Cisco – Cisco Cloud Control with MCP-Native Network APIs
Comviva – NGAGE
LotusFlare – LFAMP
Singtel – SingVerify
Vonage – Vonage Identity Insights API
Winner: LotusFlare – LFAMP
Category judges singled out consent management, which often holds up commercial deployment of Location, KYC Match and Number Verify across jurisdictions; one wrote that the platform "goes beyond plain API exposure to address both commercial and regulatory bottlenecks."
Awarded to the vendor with the most innovative new routing, switching or other networking product (IP or Ethernet) purpose-built for hyperscaler or data center networks. Entries should demonstrate meaningful advances in throughput, latency, power efficiency or programmability for AI infrastructure and cloud-scale workloads.
Arrcus – Arrcus Inference Network Fabric (AINF)
Ciena – DCOM
Huawei – E9000U AI-Native Infrastructure
Winner: Ciena – DCOM
DCOM rethinks the least glamorous layer in the data center, replacing copper-based out-of-band management and the aggregation tier that goes with it, by building PON directly into the routing platform and provisioning thousands of endpoints through one IP interface. The entry credits Meta's role in developing the product.
Awarded to the vendor with the most innovative optical component – including transceivers, amplifiers, filters, modulators or other photonic devices – that advances the performance, density or efficiency of optical transport, data center or AI infrastructure networks. Eligible entries may include components purpose-built for long-haul and metro transport as well as those designed for hyperscaler, cloud or AI cluster interconnect applications. Entries should reflect a significant step forward in the building blocks that enable high-capacity optical connectivity.
Ciena – Vesta 200 6.4T CPX
Credo – ZeroFlap Optical Transceivers
Marvell – 1.6T Optical DSP Platform
NewPhotonics – NPC505 Series PIC NPO Chiplet
OpenLight Photonics – 1.6T DR8 Silicon Photonics PIC
Winner: Credo – ZeroFlap Optical Transceivers
Credo took a mature building block and gave it a nervous system: on-module telemetry, non-volatile event logging and the ability to pull a degrading link out of service. It's the only entry in the category shipping to named customers and being standardized through the Open Compute Project optics reliability workstream.
Awarded to the vendor with the most innovative optical networking system – including line systems, ROADM platforms, optical transport network (OTN) equipment or coherent transmission systems – that advances the capacity, reach or manageability of optical transport networks. Eligible entries include both long-haul and metro optical systems.
Ciena – WaveLogic 6 Extreme 1.6Tbit/s quantum-safe encryption module
Tejas Networks – TJ1600-D3 Hyper Scalable DCI and Optical Platform
ZTE – HI-OTN Solution
Winner: ZTE Corporation – HI-OTN Solution
This was the only unanimous 10 from the judges in any category this year. HI-OTN was deployed with Türk Telekom in March, on a live network in Istanbul, in what ZTE describes as the world's first C+L full-band integrated 1.6 Tbit/s trial.
Awarded to the vendor with the most innovative radio access network (RAN) product or solution launched or significantly improved during the past year. Eligible entries may include open RAN, vRAN, massive MIMO, small cells or RAN automation and intelligence solutions.
Capgemini and Deutsche Telekom – Intelligent RAN Automation
Cohere Technologies – ECHO
Cohere Technologies – Pulsone Multi-G
Freshwave – 5G on Omni
MaxLinear – Sierra
ZTE – AIREngine
ZTE – Full-Scenario Indoor Digitalization Solutions
Winner: MaxLinear – Sierra
One judge called Sierra "the strongest entry in this category." The reasoning: radio supply, not interface openness, has been the real constraint on open RAN, and merchant radio silicon gives OEMs capabilities that once required an in-house ASIC team. The entry was technically interesting and included performance figures in the entry and public documents.
Awarded to the vendor or service provider with the most innovative product or solution in satellite or non-terrestrial network (NTN) connectivity, including low-Earth orbit (LEO), medium-Earth orbit (MEO) or geostationary (GEO) systems. Eligible entries may include direct-to-device satellite technology, satellite-terrestrial integration platforms, ground segment equipment or NTN-enabled services.
Capgemini – Intelligent Beam Hopping
Ceva – PentaG-NTN
Contrivian – Contrivian Constellation
MatSing and KT Corp – SuperCell UAM Solution
Mavenir – Full-Stack NTN Platform
Motive – Motive Entitlement Server
MTN – StarEdge Horizon
Winner: Mavenir – Full-Stack NTN Platform
Mavenir's platform offers satellite-terrestrial integration in the field, spanning GEO, MEO and LEO and 3G through 5G on a converged core that treats non-terrestrial access as native rather than an overlay.
Awarded to the vendor or service provider with a product or solution that creatively applies AI or machine learning to support the changing needs of communications network operators. Eligible entries may cover network optimization, predictive maintenance, traffic management, energy efficiency or any AI/ML application that measurably improves network or operational performance.
AirHop – Energy Savings with MIMO Adaptation (ESMA)
AOI – QuantumLink AI
AXON Networks – AXON Maestro
F5 – BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes
Federated Wireless – Spectrum AI
stc and Huawei – AI Calling
Paradise Mobile – Native Agentic AI
RADCOM – Neura AI Agent Suite
Red Hat – Telenor AI Factory
SK Telecom – VISTA
Winner: Federated Wireless – Spectrum AI
Everything else in this category automates a workflow above the network. Spectrum AI models the physical system the network runs inside, and as one judge put it, "applying ML at the RF layer to propagation, interference and coordination is a different order of problem from optimizing workflows above the network."
Awarded to the vendor or service provider with the most innovative product or solution that protects communications networks, infrastructure or subscribers from cyber threats, fraud or unauthorized access. Eligible entries may include network security platforms, zero-trust architectures, AI-driven threat detection, signaling security or solutions addressing the specific vulnerabilities of 5G, open RAN or cloud-native network environments.
Allot – OffNetSecure
Axiado – Trusted Control/Compute Unit (TCU)
Mobileum – Conversational AI-driven Voice Threat Detection and Prevention
OXIO – Advanced Core Routing (ACR) Singtel – Hybrid Quantum-Safe Network
Winner: Singtel – Hybrid Quantum-Safe Network
Quantum key distribution is strong but limited by distance and endpoint count, and post-quantum cryptography scales but is software. Singtel's answer is to use each where it fits: QKD on high-bandwidth mission-critical links and PQC out to branches, ATMs and mobile units. It then orchestrates both key types through one framework, which one judge called "the right design."
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 delivering a better customer experience. Eligible entries may include billing and revenue management, network orchestration, service fulfillment, customer management or AI-enhanced operational software platforms.
Altice Labs – NOSSIS One with Genius
Gaiia – gaiia AI Node
HORISEN – Messaging Operating System
IDI Billing Solutions – IDI Platform
Netcracker – Agentic AI Solution
Rakuten Symphony – Rakuten Symphony OSS
Winner: Rakuten Symphony – Rakuten Symphony OSS
One judge's summary said it all: "Rakuten stood out because it is solving a genuinely new OSS problem... That feels like genuine product innovation rather than adding AI to something that already existed."
Awarded to the systems vendor with the most innovative new solution that aids communications service providers in network testing, measurement, monitoring or assurance. Eligible entries may cover lab or field test equipment, network performance monitoring, service quality assurance or automated testing platforms.
Keysight – AresONE-1600GE
Keysight – FITS-8CH
Spirent Communications – Landslide AI Agent (Luma)
Winner: Spirent Communications – Landslide AI Agent (Luma) Spirent describes it as the first domain-trained agentic AI solution for network testing. One judge liked that a test and measurement company is taking the problem on at all after watching startups and Tier 1s run at it for years.
Awarded to the company presenting the most compelling example of how AI or machine learning is being applied to broadband or fixed access networks to improve performance, subscriber experience or operational efficiency. Eligible entries may include AI-powered network management platforms, intelligent capacity planning, proactive fault detection or personalized subscriber experience tools deployed in fiber, cable or fixed wireless access environments.
AOI – Predicting amplifier faults on Charter's Spectrum network
Huawei and TIME dotCom – Automating home broadband fault resolution in Malaysia
Netcracker – Streamlining network operations with GFiber
Plume and TELUS – Cutting support calls with AI-driven digital care
Winner: Huawei Technologies and TIME dotCom – AI-Driven HBB Intelligent O&M
When asked about its results, Huawei was the only entrant in this category to answer with baselines and comparative data. Huawei named its technique and validated its model, reporting an 80% match between the users its system scored as at risk and those who actually called to complain.
This award is for the company that shares an outstanding example of how 5G or pre-standard 6G network technology brings measurable results to a business, government or other organization. Entries should demonstrate real-world deployment outcomes, not theoretical capabilities.
KT – Prioritizing emergency communications for Korea's National Fire Agency
Singtel – Replacing office infrastructure with 5G eSIM workspaces
ZTE and China Mobile – Turning overlapping cell interference into capacity on a live 5G-Advanced network
Winner: ZTE and China Mobile – Pre6G GigaMIMO
Operators normally buy capacity with spectrum or with sites. GigaMIMO buys it with space, synchronizing overlapping cells so they behave as one coordinated antenna array. In a field trial on China Mobile Hubei's live commercial 5G-A network in Wuhan, it delivered a 26.5% average throughput gain and two to six times the user experience rate in overlapping coverage. One judge called it "a bridge technology; it can be deployed during 5GA but continue to live on well into the 6G era."
Awarded to the company that is using artificial intelligence or machine learning in an innovative way to improve network performance, customer service or business operations for a communications service provider network. Entries should highlight measurable outcomes and the specific AI or ML techniques employed.
Blue Planet, a division of Ciena – Cutting NOC triage time with an AI-driven IP digital twin
China Mobile and Huawei – Running a zero-touch core network with multi-agent AI
Optus and Ericsson – Replacing static RAN rules with real-time AI on a live 5G network
SK Telecom – Tuning 5G cells autonomously with an AI-RAN optimizer
ZTE and China Mobile – Automating core network fault, complaint and change handling with AI agents
Winner: Optus Australia and Ericsson – AI-Native RAN Optimization
In this use case, reinforcement learning replaces static link-adaptation rules and the coverage prediction model retrains locally for every individual cell, because coverage behavior is local. One judge said this use case is "leveraging AI in a very telco-specific way." The trial on Optus' live commercial 5G network measured a gain of more than 20% in cell-level downlink throughput in medium-to-poor radio conditions.
Awarded to the company or institution presenting the best example of how it is successfully working to broaden access and reduce the barriers to affordable Internet connectivity for underserved communities. Eligible entries may include rural broadband deployments, subsidy or affordability programs, digital literacy initiatives or public-private partnerships aimed at closing the connectivity gap.
EOLO and Qualcomm – Delivering gigabit fixed wireless to Italian towns beyond the fiber map
eX² Technology and Navajo County – Building open-access middle-mile fiber across rural and tribal Arizona
Fidium and Maine Connectivity Authority – Bringing countywide fiber to Lincoln County, Maine
HFCL – Hardening BharatNet's rural backbone with resilient routing
Vistabeam and Tarana Wireless – Making the nation's first reported BEAD-funded connection in Ogallala, Nebraska
WOW! – Extending fiber to underserved southeastern Alabama
Winner: Fidium, Lincoln County, and the Maine Connectivity Authority
This entry covered a rural fiber build, an affordability mechanism, a digital literacy component through the National Digital Equity Center, and a genuine public-private structure with defined roles for each party. The build ran from January to August 2025 at roughly $30 million, with $21.8 million of it in Fidium's own capital. The private majority is why the network may still be running in ten years rather than becoming a stranded asset.
Awarded to the company that used its communications technology or network to deliver a superior experience to business, consumer or government customers. Eligible entries should demonstrate how technology – including AI, automation, self-service or network improvements – directly improved customer satisfaction, reduced friction or created measurable loyalty gains.
Airties and T-Mobile – Optimizing home Wi-Fi continuously for millions of subscribers
Boingo Wireless – Converging Wi-Fi and cellular at Citi Field for the New York Mets
BT Group and Amdocs – Streamlining the contract-to-activation journey
China Mobile Henan and Huawei – Making network benefits visible on the device screen
e&, Amdocs and NVIDIA – Automating customer care journeys with agentic AI
Glo Fiber Business – Replacing 12 Internet drops with one fiber backbone at Ford's Colony
Motive and e& – Raising first-call resolution with unified service management
Netcracker – Bringing agentic AI into a Tier 1 US operator's wholesale operations
ZTE and China Mobile – Letting subscribers customize 5G performance in plain language
Winner: Netcracker Technology
Working inside the wholesale business of a major US operator, Netcracker cut contract interpretation from five to ten days down to under one, partner configuration from two or three days to under 30 minutes, and first-pass invoice review from more than two hours to under 30, with rework falling from 12-18% to under 5% across a year of sustained production. One judge called it "the strongest evidence, best results" in the category.
Awarded to the vendor or service provider presenting the most compelling example of how they reduced energy consumption, improved power efficiency or advanced sustainability goals across a communications network or data center environment. Eligible entries may include AI-driven energy optimization, renewable energy deployments, cooling innovations, network consolidation initiatives or any measurable effort to reduce the carbon footprint or operating costs of communications infrastructure.
Deutsche Telekom – Cutting 5G core energy consumption without a hardware refresh
Huawei and stc – Shrinking telco cloud energy use and footprint in Saudi Arabia
KT and Palantir – Automating basestation sleep scheduling with AI safeguards
Winner: Deutsche Telekom – Full Stack Energy Efficiency
DT achieved up to 65% off-peak energy savings in the 5G core against an original target of 50%, measured across four purpose-built lab systems with controlled variables. One judge observed that "the savings were achieved with existing hardware. This is not common, as many other vendors/telcos claim these with new-gen silicon."
Awarded to the company with an outstanding example of a successful fixed wireless access (FWA) or innovative broadband deployment that expanded coverage, improved speeds or served a previously underserved market. Eligible entries may include consumer, enterprise or wholesale deployments leveraging 4G, 5G or millimeter wave technology.
Mediacom, Harmonic, ATX Networks and Hitron – Taking DOCSIS 4.0 from the lab to live customers in Moline, Illinois
Nextlink Internet and Tarana Wireless – Activating the nation's first BEAD-funded tower in rural Louisiana
RtBrick and Citynet – Scaling an Austrian ISP's broadband with disaggregated routing
ZTE – Stretching mmWave fixed wireless beyond visual range for EOLO
Winner: Nextlink Internet and Tarana Wireless – Tarana G2 BEAD deployments
Nextlink lit the first tower in the country funded under BEAD, serving 104 locations in southern Bienville Parish, Louisiana, at gigabit-class speeds. BEAD locations are underserved by federal definition, making this a rare entry that satisfies all three of the category's tests at once: new coverage, better speeds and a market nobody else was serving.
Awarded to the vendor, operator or hyperscaler presenting the most compelling example of how advanced optical or high-capacity transport networking solved a real-world connectivity challenge. Eligible entries may include AI data center interconnect deployments, long-haul capacity expansions, submarine cable innovations or metro optical upgrades that demonstrate measurable gains in throughput, latency or efficiency.
HFCL – Doubling fiber capacity in full ducts for a hyperscale AI buildout
Seren Juno, Ribbon and Acacia – Proving 20 Tbit/s per fiber pair across the trans-Pacific JUNO cable
Winner: HFCL Limited – IBR Microcable Family
Fiber counts matter, as one judge explained: "With DWDM very close to max spectral efficiency, higher fiber count is the easiest way to boost capacity. The 200 micron allows hyperscalers to squeeze more fiber in existing ducts immediately, rather than wait for new construction." The judges favored the entry for submitting a commercial deployment rather than a trial.
Awarded to the company presenting the most innovative and impactful use of Internet of Things technology over a communications network. Eligible entries should demonstrate how connected devices, sensors or IoT platforms delivered measurable business, operational or societal value in industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, smart cities or logistics.
Aeris and Orange Business Belgium – Embedding zero-trust security in the cellular network for enterprise IoT
Deutsche Telekom IoT and Mavenir – Localizing connected car traffic with a distributed packet core
Winner: Deutsche Telekom IoT GmbH and Mavenir – Remote Packet Core for Connected Cars
Keeping the control plane in Europe while breaking traffic out locally in North America answers latency, transit cost and data sovereignty with one architecture. One judge called the distributed UPF design "a legitimate technical achievement." It is live in production, carrying connected car services for Deutsche Telekom's IoT business.
Awarded to the vendor or service provider presenting the most compelling example of how they unlocked new revenue streams or transformed their business model using network capabilities, platforms or digital services. Eligible entries may include network-as-a-service offerings, platform-based revenue models, digital transformation of the revenue stack or any initiative that demonstrably expanded commercial opportunity beyond traditional connectivity services.
Bango – Bundling subscriptions into new telco revenue at Telenet
m:tel Montenegro and Whalebone – Turning network security into a mass-market revenue line
Telstra and Ericsson – Selling guaranteed 5G slices by the hour with a money-back SLA
Winner: Telstra and Ericsson – Telstra Dynamic 5G
Enterprises buy a committed throughput tier by the hour, and if Telstra misses the commitment, the customer isn't charged for that period. Slicing monetization has been the industry's most-promised and least-delivered proposition for years. As one judge put it, "whereas the industry has lagged in delivering differentiation with 5G SA, Telstra is providing a shining example for operators across the globe."
Awarded to the operator, vendor or developer platform presenting the most compelling example of how network APIs were exposed, commercialized or used to deliver new value to enterprise customers or third-party developers. Eligible entries may include CAMARA or Open Gateway deployments, API marketplace implementations or specific enterprise applications built on programmable network capabilities that generated measurable business results.
Mobileum – Turning network location intelligence into child-safety services in India
Motive, Vivo Brazil and Telefónica – Replacing SMS passcodes with SIM-based silent authentication
Winner: Motive, Vivo Brazil and Telefónica
Vivo became the first operator in Latin America to launch SIM-based silent authentication through the GSMA Open Gateway framework, replacing the SMS one-time password with something the network already knows. One judge wrote: "This feels like a genuine example of turning a network capability into a commercial product rather than simply putting an API in front of existing data."
Awarded to the vendor or service provider showcasing the most compelling example of how network modernization – including cloud-native transformation, network orchestration, automation and AI-enabled operations where they serve broader transformation goals – delivered measurable improvements in operational efficiency, agility or cost reduction. Eligible entries may cover core network upgrades, OSS/BSS modernization, multi-domain automation or any initiative that meaningfully accelerates the evolution from legacy to modern network operations.
Blue Planet (Ciena) – Consolidating 30 orchestration engines into one order-to-service platform
Cisco – Modernizing Levi's Stadium with Wi-Fi 7 ahead of the Super Bowl
Comarch Communications and ASTRID – Replacing Belgium's public-safety BSS without a moment of downtime
CSG – Modernizing M1's B2B billing on a cloud-native platform
Deutsche Telekom – Running fixed and mobile core workloads on one cloud-native platform
KT – Automating 120,000 wireless network operations a year
MetTel – Retiring copper at 23,000 US Postal Service sites
Netcracker and e& UAE – Cutting enterprise service delivery from weeks to days with cross-domain orchestration
Rakuten Symphony – Digitizing site rollout and management for AT&T, 1&1 and Rakuten Mobile
Singtel – Rebuilding Nestlé's global network for AI workloads
Winner: Deutsche Telekom, Amdocs, HPE, Mavenir and Nokia – Horizontal Telco Cloud
Deutsche Telekom changed its network architecture and operating model, replacing per-application vendor platforms with a single horizontal, automation-first cloud across more than ten German data centers and acting as its own prime integrator across roughly 40 vendors.
Awarded to the vendor or service provider presenting the most compelling example of how they protected a communications network, its infrastructure or its subscribers from cyber threats, fraud or service disruption. Eligible entries should demonstrate real-world deployment outcomes, including the specific threat landscape addressed, the solution deployed and the measurable improvement in security posture or network resilience.
China Unicom, Huawei and Peking University – Replacing campus VPNs with a federated-identity 5G private network
CyberRidge – Proving harvest-proof optical transmission with Vodafone
Mobileum and Airtel Africa – Detecting SIM box fraud in minutes across African markets
Winner: China Unicom, Huawei Technologies and Peking University – CARSI 5G Free-Mobility Private Network
The university, not the operator, remains the sole identity authority: China Unicom carries the traffic and steers campus-bound sessions off the public path, while authentication returns to Peking University's CARSI identity provider. One judge pointed to the model's "significant replication potential" across the roughly 700 universities already on CARSI.
Awarded to the company with an outstanding example of a successful private wireless network deployment for an enterprise, government or industrial customer. Eligible entries may include private 5G, private LTE or campus wireless deployments across industries such as manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, mining, ports or smart facilities, with emphasis on measurable operational or business outcomes.
China Mobile, Huawei and Haier – Running six factories on one 5G-Advanced network with ambient IoT
China Telecom Nanjing, ZTE and Phoenix Contact – Moving factory PLC control into the cloud over 5G
Extreme Networks and Honda Center – Lighting up the first US arena on standard-power 6GHz Wi-Fi
Moso Networks, Khasm Labs, Druid Software and eino – Building a deterministic private 5G network across the Port of Tacoma
Winner: Extreme Networks and Honda Center
Honda Center is the first large-scale AFC-enabled Standard Power 6GHz Wi-Fi deployment in the US, with 407 access points across the bowl and concourses. One judge called it a "great real technical implementation in a live setting."
Congratulations to all the winners and finalists and thanks to everyone who entered the Leading Lights.
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