Now in its third year, the annual LTE Awards, in associated with Telecoms.com, are now established as the leading event of its kind. The LTE Awards are designed to recognise, celebrate and reward the great innovations that are being made in the industry, and this year are co-located with the LTE World Summit 2012, taking place on the evening of the 23rd, at the El Xalet, Montjuic, Barcelona. The event is sure to be a glamorous and entertaining evening for all participants.

The winners, from a varied selection of 10 categories and 48 shortlisted companies, will be picked by an independent panel of judges, consisting of leading industry experts, during a two week assessment process.

To whet your appetite for the event here is a preview of Category 1: Best LTE Device/Handset:

FRITZ!Box 6842 LTE

It’s good to be a jack of all trades. The Friztz!Box 6842 LTE is a router that combined Tri-band LTE (800, 1800 and 2600MHz), 3G, Wifi, Gigabit Ethernet, a firewall, a DHCP server, a UNPnP server and a DeCT base station for six phones and an integrated answering machine. It can also act as a media server, support s IPv6 and offers USB support for printers, and even supports an analogue phone socket. By any standard, it’s a comprehensively featured device. It will be on the market in Q3 20112.

Cisco EHWIC-4G-LTE-V

The EHWIC-4G-LTE-V is an enterprise class wireless card that provides access to enhanced LTE 4G services. It’s designed to be inserted into a Cisco Integrated Services Routers – Generation 2 (ISR-G2) to quickly provide high speed connectivity for branch offices. It supports LTE band 13 (700 MHz) on Verizon LTE network and Quad-band EVDO/1xRTT and offer high performance (20x 3G), low latency (sub 50ms), IMS and dual stack IPv4 and IPv6. It has been on the market two months. There are currently 14 limited customer trials happening in the field and the product is an instant hit with the customers.

Panasonic Toughpad A1

The Panasonic Toughpad A1 is a professional-grade 4G-powered tablet that targets mission-critical and highly mobile workers where exposure to extreme environments is a constant challenge and possibility of failure is significant. Embedded 4G LTE connectivity of the Toughpad A1 provides users with faster, more reliable wireless-broadband speeds for more efficient information access and exchange. With business use in mind, the Toughpad A1 is designed with enhanced security, long product life and advanced device management features.

ZTE Cikey

The ZTE Cikey (Converged intelligent Key) is a dedicated LTE and wifi multiple access terminal. It enables users to access wifi and LTE networks and connect smartphones, tablets, and laptops to connect to networks and enjoy high-speed bandwidth in a pocket friendly device. However, the ZTE Cikey is more than just a wireless hotspot. It is a multiple access connector, capable of aggregating the 3G, LTE or wifi connection within one IP session. For example, if the user is in an overlapped area of wifi and LTE, when the user moves into wifi, the Cikey connects to it automatically, without interrupting the data flow . eMail is forwarded via wifi, while web surfing and on-line gaming is forwarded via LTE. When user moves out of wifi network, the Cikey automatically transfers the eMail and FTP data flow to LTE connection without user’s awareness. Thus, users get more bandwidth from the two access network and each of the networks has a balanced traffic load.