Winners toast success at Informa LTE Awards 2011

The 2011 Informa LTE Awards winners were announced on Tuesday night at a gala event that was part of the LTE World Summit in Amsterdam, where the winners were finally announced to the industry. The ceremony, held at the spectacular De Duif in Amsterdam and compered by BBC television sports journalist Rob Bonnet, saw eight companies recognised for their achievements across ten categories. There were 49 nominations.

It was a big night for digital security firm Gemalto, a winner in two categories, picking up a gong for Best Enabling Technology, and also for Best Contribution to LTE Standards, the only award of the night presented to an individual. The winner of this award, Patrice Beaudou, told Telecoms.com that it was an important award to receive as it represented a reward for all the work that had been done by his team over the years on GSM, UMTS and latterly LTE. “I am very proud that the entire industry has recognised the work that was done,” he said.

Also celebrating a double success was Chinese vendor Huawei, which pocketed awards for both Significant Progress for a Commercial Launch of LTE by a vendor and Best LTE Network Elements.

Alcatel Lucent tasted success with the award for Best Network or Device Testing Product for LTE. Valerie Layan, vice president of EMEA wireless solutions at Alcatel-Lucent, told Telecoms.com that the award  recognised the company’s leadership in the industry. “I was very proud to win the award for best Test Product,” she said, before adding that she was disappointed not to win any more.

Thorston Robrecht, head of product management at Nokia Siemens Networks, expressed satisfaction at his company’s award for Best Core Network Product. “SON is one of the key elements in deploying the LTE networks… we’ve been putting in a lot of effort over the last year and now we are really getting ahead of the pack, bringing it to the market, getting the recognition and it’s really a pleasure to see it happening right now”.

TeliaSonera, which was the first operator to launch a commercial LTE network last year, again won the award for Significant Progress for a Commercial Launch of LTE by an Operator. Tommy Ljunggren, vice president of system development said he was more nervous this time round due to not being the only active LTE player in the market. “It was actually even greater than last year as this year the competition was a lot tougher so it felt really good,” he said.

In other categories, Ericsson saw off the opposition to pick up the award for Best Contribution to R&D, Qualcomm proved unbeatable in the Best Chipset/Processor category and Korean vendor Samsung triumphed in the Best Device/Handset category.