Category 6 - Best Technology Awards

6a: Best Network Quality Initiative
6b: Best New Service Delivery Platform
6c: Best Billing or Customer Care Solution
6d: Best Roaming Product or Service

Previous Winners (2007)

Category 6a: Best Network Quality Initiative

About this category:

If the quality of service delivery to customers is not maintained at high levels, customer satisfaction ratings will fall and they will inevitably contemplate alternative service suppliers.

Customers today are increasingly aware of the kind of quality that they require for their services, and want to have the choice and flexibility of varying degrees of on-demand quality with the associated premiums.

The Best Network Quality Initiative award recognises the contribution that operators and network management organisations make to maintain these high levels of performance, as well as the contribution from infrastructure suppliers and other specialist organisations that are focused on delivering quality to the end user.

Please Note: The presentation of this award will be made during the Mobile World Congress conference sessions in Barcelona, in February 2008. Full details of the presentations will be confirmed nearer the time.


Eligibility:

The category is open to network operators and companies and organisations that develop or manufacture mobile radio networks products, accessories and applications for network operators and organisations providing network management services such as national or international operations centres. These include:

Judging criteria

Entries can only be submitted for products that are commercially available. The product or service entered must have been launched after December 1st 2006 or will be launched before November 30th 2007.

The judges will be looking for answers to the question, "How does this product, accessory, application or service improve (my) customers' experience of the network?" They will be looking particularly at the following:

  1. In what demonstrable ways does your product or service enhance the service quality of the network to users?
  2. What capacity or efficiency gains does your product or service give to the network operator?
  3. What specific user benefits are delivered thanks to your quality initiative?
  4. How flexible is your product in answering the various quality parameters demanded by customers for each service?

In addition, the judges will consider new or recent innovation incorporated in this product or service.


Entry Forms:

In order to ensure a consistent approach for our judges, entries must be submitted using the 6a: Best Network Quality Initiative entry form. Entries not using the web based entry form will not be considered. All entries must be submitted by November 30th 2007.


Specific Entry Form Questions for this category:

On the entry form, in addition to submitting contact and company information, you will be asked to answer the following questions (maximum text/character length for your answers also shown in brackets below):

Category 6b: Best New Service Delivery Platform

About this category:

Introducing innovative and exciting new services helps attract new users and helps enhance the revenues from existing ones. With the wealth of GSM and 3G features available to developers, the scope of possibilities for new services is extremely broad. An important criterion for new service platforms is their ability to coexist harmoniously with existing systems and complement the service offerings already available in order to make for a seamless transition in service roll-out and user experience.

The Best New Service Delivery Platform award has been developed to recognise the contributions that middleware and software application developers as well as a great variety of Value Added Service providers make to enhancing the service delivery environment and attracting new mobile users.

Please Note: The presentation of this award will be made during the Mobile World Congress conference sessions in Barcelona, in February 2008. Full details of the presentations will be confirmed nearer the time. Summarised highlights of all category 7 awards will be featured during the GSM Awards Gala Dinner on the evening of Tuesday 12th February 2008.


Eligibility:

The category is open to middleware and software development organisations, developers or manufacturers of Value Added Service platforms and applications and providers of Value Added Services:

Judging criteria:

Entries can only be submitted for products that are commercially available. The product or service entered must have been launched after December 1st 2006 or will be launched before November 30th 2007.

The judges will be looking for answers to the question, "How does this Value Added Service (VAS) application or platform enhance the experience to (my) customers?" They will be looking particularly at the following:

  1. How does your service delivery platform enhance the range of value added services a (your) network can deliver?
  2. To what extent is your service delivery platform scalable, how does it encourage interoperability and how is this beneficial to operators?
  3. What techniques or functionality has been developed to make your service delivery platform easy for subscribers to use?
  4. From a deployment perspective, how easy is it for a network to simply 'plug-and-play' your service delivery platform with minimum disruption to the rest of the network?

In addition, the judges will consider the innovation shown by the VAS and its delivery as well as the scale and speed of return on investment for the operator.


Entry Forms:

In order to ensure a consistent approach for our judges, entries must be submitted using the 6b: Best New Service Delivery Platform entry form. Entries not using the web based entry form will not be considered. All entries must be submitted by November 30th 2007.


Specific Entry Form Questions for this category:

On the entry form, in addition to submitting contact and company information, you will be asked to answer the following questions (maximum text/character length for your answers also shown in brackets below):

Category 6c: Best Billing or Customer Care Solution

About this category:

Retaining customers and enhancing the customer relationship is a significant requirement for operators as they face increasing competition. With customers becoming more 'tariff and feature savvy', all operators are having to work harder to maintain high customer loyalty levels and reduce churn. This essentially means that bills need to be more customer-friendly with clear breakdowns in terms of tariffs for individual services, and the systems should be flexible enough to cater to the different combinations of service plans that an operator wishes to roll out to meet the needs of specific customer segments.

The Best Billing or Customer Care Solution award recognises the innovative programmes developed by operators and the products or services developed by specialist CRM or Billing solution providers that will increase profitability, reduce costs and maintain a high standard of customer loyalty in this increasingly competitive environment.

Please Note: The presentation of this award will be made during the Mobile World Congress conference sessions in Barcelona, in February 2008. Full details of the presentations will be confirmed nearer the time. Summarised highlights of all category 7 awards will be featured during the GSM Awards Gala Dinner on the evening of Tuesday 12th February 2008.


Eligibility:

The category is open to users and developers of Billing and CRM solutions. These include:

Judging criteria:

Entries can only be submitted for products that are commercially available. The product, service or CRM programme entered must have been launched after December 1st 2006 or will be launched before November 30th 2007.

The judges will be looking for answers to the question, "How does this product or application enhance the (my) customer relationship experience?" They will be looking particularly at the following:

  1. What evidence is there that your product or service has improved customer retention levels?
  2. How has your product or application improved response times or customer satisfaction levels?
  3. What makes your programme or product simple to operator or easy for an operator to understand and appreciate its benefits?
  4. What makes your programme or product simple to operate or easy for a customer to understand and appreciate its benefits?
  5. How scalable and flexible is your product to cater to new service delivery platforms, rate plans and new service combinations that operators wish to roll out in a speedy and efficient manner to its customers?

In addition, the judges will consider:

Entry Forms:

In order to ensure a consistent approach for our judges, entries must be submitted using the 6c: Best Billing or Customer Care Solution entry form . Entries not using the web based entry form will not be considered. All entries must be submitted by November 30th 2007.


Specific Entry Form Questions for this category:

On the entry form, in addition to submitting contact and company information, you will be asked to answer the following questions (maximum text/character length for your answers also shown in brackets below):

Category 6d: Best Roaming Product or Service

About this category:

One of the biggest benefits for users is the continuous contact with the comprehensive range of services they subscribe to whilst on the move. This ability - seamless roaming - is one of the most significant benefits of the GSM and 3GSM family of solutions.

The Best Roaming Product or Service award recognises the advances made each year with products and services that continue to broaden the access of roaming users to services wherever they are.

Please Note: The presentation of this award will be made during the Mobile World Congress conference sessions in Barcelona, in February 2008. Full details of the presentations will be confirmed nearer the time. Summarised highlights of all category 7 awards will be featured during the GSM Awards Gala Dinner on the evening of Tuesday 12th February 2008.


Eligibility:

The category is open to network operators and equipment and service developers and suppliers. These include:

Judging criteria:

Entries can only be submitted for products that are commercially available. The product, service or CRM programme entered must have been launched after December 1st 2006 or will be launched before November 30th 2007.

The judges will be looking for answers to the question, "How does this product or service make it easier for users to communicate seamlessly?" They will be looking particularly at the following:

  1. What evidence is there of service level improvements for customers as a direct result of your product or service?
  2. What innovative or unique features does your product or service employ?
  3. What evidence is there that your product or solution delivers GSM family roaming functionality for the benefit of users?

In addition, the judges will consider:

Entry Forms:

In order to ensure a consistent approach for our judges, entries must be submitted using the 6d: Best Roaming Product or Service entry form. Entries not using the web based entry form will not be considered. All entries must be submitted by November 30th 2007.


Specific Entry Form Questions for this category:

On the entry form, in addition to submitting contact and company information, you will be asked to answer the following questions (maximum text/character length for your answers also shown in brackets below):

WinnersCategoriesHistory