V&D Recognizes Stalwarts in Telco Ecosystem with 31 Excellence Awards at TLF 2022

Voice&Data, India’s leading telecom magazine since 1994 recognizes & felicitates people,  projects and companies in various categories  for their pioneering work and excellence during its much anticipated annual event, Telecom Leadership Forum (TLF).

This year, Voice&Data received 100+ nominations from India’s Telco ecosystem in various  categories for recognition and felicitation during  the  21^st edition of TLF, held on March 22, 2022.

31 winners of V&D Excellence Awards were chosen by the select panel comprising of Experts and CyberMedia Editors on various parameters, like innovation, impact, pioneering work, and excellence. Nominees across the Telecom spectrum were conferred with the 30 V&D Excellence Awards.

Among the categories were -- Multilingual Internet, Broadband services, 5G mobile devices, Innovation, Mobile handset Exports, Customer Service, and many more.

Apple was awarded the ‘Highest Smartphone Exports under PLI scheme’ category award.
As per insights from CyberMedia Research (CMR), Apple’s share of iPhone exports from India grew a whopping 192% YoY in 2021, with exports to Europe, Japan and Middle-East among others. Apple’s share of iPhone exports from India stands at >4.6Mn units in 2021.

National Internet Exchange of India, NIXI, received the V&D Excellence award for leading the charge in ‘Multilingual Internet and IDN’. NIXI is playing a nodal role in helping proliferate Multilingual Internet -- critical for the next 500 million (non-English speaking) Internet Users in India. NIXI launched Internationalised Domain Names (IDN) in 22 Indian languages - a first for any country - together with emails in regional languages.

The V&D Excellence awards recognised Reliance Jio Infocomm in 6 categories: ‘Internet Services’ - for empowering homeowners and SMEs with digital connectivity and transformational broadband in India; ‘Network Infra’- for empowering the country with 4G LTE and 5G-led transformation that made an impact on many people through easy digital access, connected enterprise, indigenous technology and fibre backbone; ‘Content Services’- for developing Future-ready content for new-age devices with compelling affordability and versatility for users; ‘Marketing Solutions’- for arming businesses with the power of cloud-first and cloud-native tech to leverage online avenues for growth and digitalisation; ‘Enterprise Business Services’- For building an affordable, and simple, integrated digital service that strengthens small businesses on efficiency and growth with enterprise-grade connectivity and solutions; ‘CSR’ category for building solutions like an indigenous healthcare app, a novel Chatbot, powered with easy connectivity and data, that helped users during pandemic.

Vodafone Idea Limited won V&D Excellence awards in 4 categories: ‘Innovation’- For spawning the Transferable Best Practices Model for continuous excellence in supply chain areas - it resulted in 60 best practices and 1200 improvement opportunities; ‘CSR’ - For deploying a significant intervention for Continuous and Uniform Health, Safety, and Wellness training in Logistics areas; ‘IoT/AI’- For introducing a Policy Compliance Portal for injecting more transparency, robust governance for vendors; ‘Security’- For rolling out the 'Privacy By Design Framework' that addressed the challenges of managing personal data and built proactive awareness.

Bharti Airtel won the V&D Excellence Award in the ‘Marketing’ category, for the BLACK initiative which brings simplicity and user-power in management and experience of its mobile services.

Tata Tele Business Services also won the V&D Excellence award in Marketing for its cloud communication suite that was ideal during the pandemic-led work culture. But caters to the communications need of big giants in multiple industries.

NEC Corporation India Pvt Ltd won the ‘5G Innovation’ category award for driving innovation in 5G solutions --  for the rest of the world and created from India. NEC implemented the world’s first 5G commercial network for Rakuten in Japan from its India support and services team --  it deployed BSS/OSS, 5G R.U., and 5G core solutions for Rakuten.

C-DOT was the unanimous choice in the ‘Indigenous Technology Innovation category -- for “injecting real self-reliance (aatmanirbhar-ta) in the telecom sector and the data networking space - with high-end local R&D, Standards innovation and promotion of local startups.

Mavenir bagged the V&D Excellence Award for ‘Network Software’. Mavenir's Converged Mobile and Packet Core solution solves a core problem of operational efficiency for mobile operators. And makes it easier to leap to 5G - with scale-up, scale-down flexibility.

The V&D Excellence Recognition Award 2021 for other categories were as follows:

ONEOTT iNTERTAINMENT LIMITED in ‘Internet Services’ category, for empowering users during the pandemic with 99 percent network consistency and fast Internet. Its projects for Dharavi and Delhi-free Wi-Fi were also.

Tejas Networks in the ‘Innovation’ category, for enabling enterprises with a breakout architecture for dynamic capacity scaling with no extra hardware costs.

Tech Mahindra in the ‘Enterprise Business Service’ category, for empowering a Telco Operator with automation CoE and RPA that resulted in a drop in operating costs and a jump in Telesales.

AT&T Global Network Services India Private Limited in the ‘Network Infra & Innovation’ category, for building Total Access Orchestration platform at prominent IDC sites for multi-service integration, network transformation, and aggregation.

Aeris Communications India Pvt. Ltd ‘Business Process Innovation’ category, for developing IoT solutions that enable reduced MTTR, less IoT service downtime, faster response time, and enhanced application monitoring.

Shyam Spectra Pvt. Ltd, in the ‘Network Infra’ category, for building network solutions that bolster visibility and enable application performance, managed Wi-fi, SD-WAN, and security.

ACT Fibernet, in the Marketing category, for executing a successful 360-degree Internet campaign (on SmartFibre Technology during the pandemic) that had an impact on 24 million people.

Zerone Microsystems Pvt. Ltd, in the ‘Mobile Payments’ category, for a successful solution on Massively Scalable Cards Acceptance that saw a 13,700 percent jump in 12 months and empowered the under-served merchant community in India.

Dixon Technologies in the Make in India category, for excelling in local manufacturing in the telecom and networking products like phones, modems, routers, and set-top boxes through capacity expansion, R&D focus, and automation.

Sify won the 'Network Services' award for deploying the managed SDWAN platform which helps in separating high priority traffic from less crucial traffic, thereby making the network more efficient, especially for critical applications of PSUs, Healthcare companies, security companies, and Banks.

Mozark in the ‘Innovation-Mobile Banking’ category, for accelerating mobile app testing on real devices platform for a major multinational bank - with a unique developer focus and elevated digital experiences.

OnePlus in ‘Market Leader-5G Smartphone player, went to for shipping the most 5G-enabled smartphones in CY2021, and paving the way for a 5G-device ready ecosystem in India.

Xiaomi in the ‘Market Leader- Smartphone Player’ category, for shipping the most smartphones in CY2021, and furthering smartphone accessibility and availability. Xiaomi enabled Indians everywhere to be connected to the digital economy.

Lenovo in the ‘Market Leader- Tablet Player’ category, for shipping the most tablets in CY2021, and making an array of consumer and enterprise use cases possible amidst the pandemic.