The 2017 Glotel Awards winners featured a battle for top spot between networking vendors Nokia and Huawei, while Korea was heavily represented among the operators.

A top night out was had by all at the new Glotels venue of 8 Northumberland Avenue in the West End of London. Entertainment was provided by Comedian Patrick Kielty and it’s probably safe to say there are a few sore heads this morning, not least that of your correspondent.

The full winners list is below, but a highlight of the competition was a close-fought contest between Nokia and Huawei, with the former edging the latter to in the Telecoms Transformation category and those roles reversed as Huawei grabbed the IoT Initiative of the year award. A strong showing from Korean operators KT and SK Telecom showed what a good job that country is doing in leading from the front as we enter the 5G era.

2017 Global Telecoms Awards winners

Advancing the road to 5G

Winner: KT – Pyeongchang 5G

Honourable mention: China Mobile and Huawei – 3GPP-Oriented 5G End-to-End Trial System

AI Initiative of the year

Winner: Nokia Networks – AI-driven Network Operations

Honourable mention: Vodafone UK – AI Tobi

Best Digital Transformation Project

Winner: CBNL, VSAT System and the City of Rzeszów – The Metropolitan Telecommunication

Honourable mention: ZTEsoft – ‘Eagle’ Project at Join Experience

Best Marketing Campaign

Winner: Turkcell – Shake & Win

BSS Transformation Excellence

Winner: Vlocity – Telus business services

Honourable mention: Openet – Real-Time-Offer Manager

Connected Cars

Winner: Cisco Jasper – Control Center 7.0 for Connected Cars

Honourable mention: PCCW Solutions – Smart Parking and Charging

Connecting the Unconnected

Winner: Telenor Pakistan – Empowering societies in remote areas of Pakistan

Honourable mention: Huawei Technologies – RuralStar

Customer Experience Excellence

Winner: EE – Network Status Checker

Honourable mention: Singtel – One Singtel Experience

Digital Content Services of the Year

Winner: China Mobile Yunnan & Huawei Technologies – Video RBT

Fixed Network Evolution

Winner: KT – GiGA Wire 2.0

Honourable mention: JT Group – JT Fibre – Jersey Network

Ground-breaking Virtualization Initiative

Winner: SK Telecom – T-MANO

Honourable mention: NetNumber – TITAN Platform

IoT Initiative of the Year

Winner: Huawei – OceanConnect IoT Platform

Honourable mention: Nokia Networks – Worldwide IoT network grid (WING)

Managed Services Innovation of the Year

Winner: Amdocs – Amdocs Intelligent Operations

Honourable mention: P.I. Works and Türk Telekom – C-SON Powered Managed Services

Mobile Money Mastery

Winner: Mahindra Comviva and Airtel Tanzania – Airtel Money ‘Tap Tap’ powered by mobiquity Money

Honourable mention: PCCW Global – Tap&Go

Most Innovative Cloud Service

Winner: Colt Technology Services – DCA On Demand

Honourable mention: Red Hat & T-Systems – T-Systems AppAgile on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

OSS Innovation

Joint Winner: Netcracker – NEC/Netcracker Hybrid Operations Management

Joint Winner: ZTEsoft – ZSmart eHomeService solution in China Telecom

Security Solution of the Year

Winner: Evolved Intelligence – SS7 Signalling Firewall

Honourable mention: Nominum – N2 Secure Business

Telecoms Transformation

Winner: Nokia Networks – FP4 routing silicon

Honourable mention: China Telecom and Huawei Technologies – Lab as a service

TV/Video Innovation

Winner: Huawei – Envision Hybrid Video solution