2016 ACOMM AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

David Stewart 2016 Communications Ambassador
Category Awards Telstra, Optus Mobile, Symbio Networks, Southern Phone Company, Cisco Systems Australia, NetComm Wireless, SpeedCast, Vodafone Hutchison Australia and Vodafone Foundation and the Conexu Foundation.

 
Sydney, 21 July 2016 – The winners of the prestigious 2016 Communications Alliance & CommsDay Awards were announced last night at the 10th Annual ACOMM Awards Dinner in Sydney.  Attended by more than 500 industry leaders, the evening’s keynote address was delivered by Senator the Hon. Mitch Fifield, Federal Minister for Communications and the Arts.

The individual category awards were taken out by a star-studded line-up of Australian service providers - featuring long-established players and ‘new faces’ – including Telstra, Optus Mobile, Symbio Networks, Southern Phone Company, Cisco Systems Australia, NetComm Wireless, SpeedCast, Vodafone Hutchison Australia, the Vodafone Foundation and the Conexu Foundation

The CEO and Managing Director of Netcomm Wireless, Mr David Stewart has been named Australian Communications Ambassador 2016 for his long-running and ground-breaking contributions to the Australian IT and Communications Industries over the past 30 years.

A leader in local innovation and design, David has consistently supported Australian manufacturing and IT professionals and overseen the development of world-class network terminating equipment, machine-to-machine solutions and broadband technology.

“The ACOMM Awards represent the pinnacle of achievement for the Australian communications industry and I congratulate all the winners and finalists in the 2016 ACOMMS,” said Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton.

“Excellence in innovation is a pervasive trait in the achievements of the 2016 ACOMM winners.”

“We are seeing ever more clearly the race to differentiate through innovations that harness advanced technology and combine it with inventive thinking to deliver new and valuable capabilities to customers.”

The winners of the 2016 ACOMM Awards are:

• Communications Ambassador – David Stewart, CEO and Managing Director, Netcomm Wireless

• Innovation - Large Company – Telstra for Telstra Air. Telstra Air is Australia’s largest Wi-Fi network with more than 300,000 hotspots in Australia and 17 million globally.

• Vendor Innovation - Large – Optus Mobile for Cash by Optus Wearables.  Cash by Optus Wearables enables Optus mobile customers to make contactless payments using their phone anywhere Visa payWave is accepted

• Vendor Innovation - Emerging – Symbio Networks for TollShield. TollShield for Symbio Networks is a real-time toll fraud mitigation software.

• Commitment to Customer Service – Southern Phone Company Southern Phone Company implemented an integrated approach to lifting customer satisfaction levels for mobile customers

• Services to the Industry, Professional Services – Cisco Systems for bringing together 500 students with industry leaders at their NedAcad Student Summit during Cisco Live ses’.

• Best Mobile Solution – Optus Mobile for their Cash by Optus is Money Made Mobile.

• Internet of Things Innovator – NetComm Wireless for their NetComm Wireless Smart Home Gateway.  This first IoT device to reduce household power consumption and sustain energy efficiency.

• Community Contribution – Conexu Foundation for Braille Captel for the Conexu Braille CapTel Trial allows people who are deaf and blind access their telephone using their own voice.

• Community Contribution – Vodafone and the Vodafone Foundation for DreamLab This android app harnesses the collective power of users’ devices when they are charging, by sending them tiny problems from the cloud to solve. Users choose a research project (breast, prostate, ovarian or pancreatic cancer), and how much data they’d like to give on mobile (max 500MB a month) or WiFi.

• Satellite Provider of the Year Award – SpeedCast for their investment in infrastructure to support classified communications for government clients.

• Best Marketing Initiative – Cisco for Cisco Live their premier education program training destination for IT professionals worldwide.

Communications Day Australasia is Australia and New Zealand’s most respected source of daily telecom industry news and commentary published under the Decisive Publishing stable. For further information see www.commsday.com