DTW Ignite: Excellence Awards recognize innovation in telecoms

TM Forum awarded six CSPs and four supplier partners with Excellence Awards for real-world examples of innovation in advancing TM Forum’s three industry missions: Composable IT & Ecosystems, Autonomous Network, and AI & Data Innovation.

Winners were selected from more than 150 entries by an impartial panel of 28 judges (listen to our podcastin which this year's judges discuss how they made their choices). The entries were narrowed down to 40 finalists, and winners were chosen in a third round of judging. More information about the finalist and winning entries is available on here.

“The quality of entries this year has been incredibly high, reflecting an industry that is no longer experimenting with transformation, but mastering it,” said Joann O’Brien, VP Digital Ecosystems, TM Forum. In fact, an award category was added this year because of the quality of entries, she added. “Top finalists from across all the categories were included in this new category called Impact and Innovation,” she explained.

And the winners are…

Excellence in ODA Implementation: Jio Platforms and Reliance Jio Infocomm

Redefining telecom excellence through pioneering IT transformation and ODA composability in the 5G/6G era

Jio Platforms was recognized for strategically implementing TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA) and integrating 52 Open APIs, resulting in streamlined processes, improved network management and enhanced customer experiences. Jio has been able to measure and quantify many benefits of its ODA implementation including a 30% decrease in response time to network issues, a 30% reduction in operational expenses and a 15% decrease in implementation costs.

Excellence in Data & AI Innovation: China Telecom and Huawei

AI agents driving a new era of operations & maintenance (O&M) and transforming customer experience

China Telecom launched its Qiming network large language model (LLM) in 2022. Currently, it has deployed 12 AI assistants and agents for home broadband installation and maintenance across the company’s 31 operating companies. The AI agents have helped China Telecom reduce operational expenses and have improved customer satisfaction by over 10%.

Excellence in Customer Experience: Telstra

Customer innovation unleashed through inversion of control: The Adaptive Networks Product Experience

Telstra’s Product Experience (PEX) has been awarded for empowering customers to design, deploy and scale their own solutions using composable technology and modular APIs. With PEX, the telco is no longer a gatekeeper of rigid product offerings but an enabler of customer-driven innovation. Telstra’s “Solutioning Hub” is more than a simple ordering platform, enabling customers to self-design, quote and activate through a canvas-style interface. The hub relies on the Telstra Reference Architecture Model (TRAM), which is the operator’s implementation of ODA.

Excellence in Monetizing the Network: AsiaInfo and China Unicom

Industrial-focused innovative private 5G network products

China Unicom’s “5G + Industrial Internet” private network was recognized for helping industrial customers significantly improve production and operational efficiency, reduce labor costs, and enhance delivery efficiency. Since its launch in 2021, the private network product has supported more than 2,000 projects across 16 vertical industries, including sectors such as industrial manufacturing, energy, mining, healthcare, education, cultural tourism, agriculture and automotive Internet of Things (IoT).

Excellence in Innovation for People & Planet: Claro Argentina and Amdocs

Claro Argentina’s and Amdocs’ innovative AI-driven energy-efficiency approach which significantly improves network and operational performance

Claro Argentina and Amdocs were awarded for successfully reducing energy consumption within the network while maintaining performance. Their unique AI-driven and automated approach to data analysis achieved a 35% reduction in energy consumed in baseband units. Claro also realized capex savings and was able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Excellence in Autonomous Networks: China Mobile and Huawei

China Mobile’s E2E Autonomous Network Operation Center (Dark NOC)

China Mobile and Huawei were awarded for reaching autonomous network (AN) Level 4, the level at which human involvement in network operations is minimal. The two companies developed a highly autonomous networks operations center, called Dark NOC, and two types of digital employee: role-based copilots and scenario-based agents. This led to more than a 30% reduction in backend O&M manpower, more than 5% savings in frontline installation and maintenance manpower, and a 30% drop in fault and customer complaints.

Impact & Innovation Award: Swisscom and Netcracker

Pioneering ODA-based transformation accelerates growth and innovation for Swisscom

Swisscom and Netcracker have been recognized for transforming the Swiss operator’s operations support systems (OSS) and operations to increase innovation and speed development of new services, including non-telecoms services. As a result, Swisscom has been able to drastically reduce the time it takes to deliver network-as-a-service (NaaS). Swisscom’s digital architecture is built on ODA, and the company has achieved AN Level 4 autonomous operational domains in its IP transport network.