5G, Open RAN and Neutral Host feature heavily as awards recognise companies looking to the future
London, UK 14th May 2021 – Small Cell Forum (SCF) has announced the winners of the SCF Small Cell Awards 2021, recognising outstanding achievement within, and contributions to, the global small cell industry. The awards were presented at a ceremony during the virtual Small Cells World Summit last night.
Open to the whole industry and judged independently of SCF by a panel of distinguished analysts, journalists and industry experts, the awards attracted entries from operators and vendors from across the world and the full spectrum of the mobile value chain.
Chair of Judges, and Co-founder of Rethink Research, Caroline Gabriel said: “The standard of entries was higher than ever this year, and the judges were particularly impressed by the wide range of technologies and business models that were represented. The finalists and winners reflect how the small cell market is maturing to enable a wide diversity of operators, suppliers and innovative services.”
The full list of award winners is:
Excellence in commercial deployment by a Mobile Network Operator
– Airspan Networks & Qualcomm – The world’s biggest mmWave Open RAN small cell network powered by Airspan and Qualcomm
Runners Up – Altiostar Network Inc, BT Wholesale
Excellence in commercial deployment by an alternative service provider – e.g., Private Network Operator, Neutral Host
– Freshwave – Freshwave delivers the UK’s first shared spectrum private mobile network with small cells
Runners Up – Druid Software with Geoverse, Ontix with Westminster City Council
Commercial Small Cell (Network) Products & Technology
– Corning & Qualcomm – Indoor 5G mmWave – Pandemic Adventures
Runners Up – KelTech IoT & VoltServer, SK Telecom
Software and Services – Management, Orchestration and Automation
– Dense Air Limited – Targeted “Multi-Operator” small cell deployment driven by Big Data Analytics: DenseWare, a Dense Air Application
Runners Up – ECSite Inc, Industrial Technology Research Institute
Innovation in emerging technology or architecture
– InterDigital – InterDigital’s AdvantEDGE Open Edge Emulation Platform for small cells
Runners Up – Freshwave, Industrial Technology Research Institute
Outstanding innovation in chips or components to enable small cell network
– Picocom – Picocom eases Open RAN small cell deployment with 5G NIC board
Runners Up – AccelerComm, EdgeQ
Outstanding Innovation in Small Cell Business Case
– Druid Software & Geoverse – City of Tucson moves to deploy Neutral Host for enabling a Smart City & closing the digital divide
Runners Up – Freshwave, Symmetrical Innovations, with coreNOC, WaveTech and Hoss Consulting
Commercial product or service to enable multi-operator and neutral host business models
– CommScope – CommScope neutral host small cell solution with ONECELL
Runners Up – Corning, JMA Wireless
Outstanding Contribution to Small Cell Open RAN platforms or standards
– Radisys – Radisys’ 5G small cell software with FAPI support
Runners Up – Benetel Limited, Industrial Technology Research Institute
Social Impact – Promoting Small Cells for Social/Economic/Environmental Development
– JMA Wireless – Private Network for public services: Model for municipal connectivity services and closing the digital divide – City of Tucson, Arizona
Runners Up – Druid Software with RFConnect
Special Awards
Judges’ Choice – Mavenir – For their significant impact in many areas of Open RAN and small cells
Chair’s Awards – Victor Torres, arQana Technologies
Individual Contribution to SCF Activities – Andrei Radulescu, Qualcomm
“In addition to congratulating all of this year’s winners, I am delighted to give Victor Torres the Chair’s Awards. Representing a new member company to the Forum this year, Victor has demonstrated vision and leadership, not only for his company, but also for the Forum,” said Prabhakar Chitrapu, Chair of Small Cell Forum. “Meanwhile, Andrei’s technical depth of knowledge, his extremely methodic & disciplined organization of the highly detailed specification work across the entire team, as well as his inclusive and yet persuasive documentation of the agreed results led to a well-planned and perfectly timed production of the 5G-FAPI specification. It is only right that he be recognized for his contribution.”
Organized by SCF, Small Cells World Summit is the flagship global event for all small cells, Wi-Fi, DAS and IoT as the technologies enabling network densification, coverage and capacity. The virtual event was the biggest global online gathering of the small cells eco-system and included high-level content, speakers, panel discussions, networking and exclusive market data.