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October 22, 2025
"We would like to congratulate all the winners of this year’s Broadband Excellence Awards"
Martin-headhot
Martin Creaner
Director General of the WBBA

Global broadband innovations and excellence recognized at the Broadband Excellence Awards

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Industry leaders and innovators from across the broadband sector have been recognized at the Broadband Excellence Awards, with the winners announced today by the World Broadband Association (WBBA).

From cutting-edge infrastructure and smart city solutions, to breakthroughs in digital inclusion and sustainable connected environments, the awards – which were announced at this year’s Broadband Development Congress – highlight the pioneers building the foundation of tomorrow's gigabit societies.

“We would like to congratulate all the winners of this year’s Broadband Excellence Awards,” said WBBA Director General Martin Creaner. “All organizations, projects and technologies nominated this year are shaping the future of connectivity, driving digital transformation, and empowering communities through broadband and emerging technologies such as AI and cloud.”

T-Mobile USA were the winners of the AI in Network Excellence category, in recognition of exceptional initiative in leveraging AI applications to transform network capabilities, improve performance and support next-generation applications. The company’s submission demonstrated a commitment to pushing the boundaries of broadband networking, and laying the foundation for efficient and scalable digital ecosystems.

Within the Broadband for Digital Inclusion Excellence category, Aztelekom and Globe Telecom were joint winners for their respective ‘Online Azerbaijan’ and ‘No Filipino Left Offline – Connecting the Underserved’ submissions. Both entries reflected impactful initiatives which have successfully closed the digital divide within their regions by extending meaningful and affordable broadband access to underserved or unserved populations.

This year’s Broadband Innovation Excellence for Future Applications winner was Safaricom. The service provider’s ‘Affordable Broadband for All: Pioneering Africa’s Smart Cities Through Digital Equity and Innovation’ submission was recognized for enhancing broadband capabilities to enable emerging, high-demand digital experiences across the continent, while future-proofing broadband networks to meet the demands of next-generation content and user interaction.

China Unicom and the Intelligent Converged FTTR Terminal won the Intelligent Home Innovation Excellence Award for the solution’s ability to redefine the connected home. The telco was successful as its terminal delivers intelligent, seamless and value-added digital experiences within the home through Customer Premises Equipment and Networks (CPE/CPN).

For the Network Infrastructure Innovation Excellence Award, the judges chose China Telecom E-Surfing IoT Tech and Turkcell. Both companies evidenced outstanding advancements in broadband infrastructure that enables smarter, more inclusive and resilient digital societies.

Four nominees were awarded the Smart Gigacity Excellence Award during BDC 2025. Within the Advanced Cities subcategory, Telecom Argentina’s submission for their work in Recreo, Charata, Cafayete and Anatuya, as well as Raisecom for their Beijing project were the winners. For the Developing City subcategory, both Sunrise - for their advancements in Kenya, including Nakuru and Kiambu - and Tunisie Telecom, which was nominated for its work in Tunis, Tunisia, were awarded the prize.

Finally, stc was recognized as the Judging Panel’s Special Award, bestowed on them for the company’s outstanding achievement in Regional Giga Network developments.

For full details on all shortlisted submissions and the award categories, please visit the WBBA website.

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Key Messages
Key Messages
Recommendations
Recommendations
The Importance of Greater Broadband Investment​
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Key Messages

Advanced cloud technology together with superior end-to-end connectivity can enable a wider and more sophisticated range of applications that can in turn drive greater innovation, efficiency, and wealth.
Both enterprises and broader industry ecosystems are actively looking at broadband’s role in enabling their digital transformation. Most respondents to the WBBA’s Thought Leadership Enterprise Survey stated that they need faster and more reliable internet to run their business applications.
Certainly, in the short to medium term, xDSL, cable modem, fixed-wireless access (FWA), and satellite are all expected to have a role in the delivery of broadband services. However, full-fiber access will always deliver the optimum experience and remains the most sustainable and cost-efficient option.
There is a danger therefore for governments to base their cost-benefit analysis on a national economic view. However, such analysis will miss all the social benefits, as well as the more local economic benefits, that advanced broadband networks can bring. Governments must take all benefits into account, including more localized ones, when creating national broadband policies.
However, future applications will not only need ultra-high-speed services but also ultra-low latency and jitter, with high levels of reliability and consistency if they are to function properly. Countries with networks that are not capable of meeting such criteria will be left behind as the world moves to the next phase of internet applications such as the “metaverse.”
Fiber networks are significantly more environmentally friendly than equivalent copper-based networks, and can help support other green initiatives such as greater working from home, the use of advanced videoconferencing, etc. Fiber-based networks also require less maintenance due to there being less active equipment in the field, and can therefore reduce operators’ operational costs.
With rollout of new access technologies like 5G and Fiber, IPv6 reached more than 30% penetration worldwide (APNIC) and is rapidly growing. IPv6 Enhanced technologies, including segment routing over IPv6, per flow monitoring and AI, enable a multitude of objects and people to be flexibly connected to the proper services, granting end-to-end quality of experience.
Based on the responses from the WBBA Thought Leadership Survey, respondents believed, on average, this coverage could be expanded to approximately 70% through private investment. It is clear that government support will be needed to get to 100%.
However, a lack of data on the available infrastructure, access to key infrastructure such as ducts and in-building networks, and a lack of understanding both internally and externally are also key barriers to further investment.
Respondents to the WBBA survey stated that a reduction in regulatory barriers, greater flexibility in partnership arrangements, copper switch-off regulations, and setting out minimum service standards for network installations, would all take priority over financial support.

Recommendations

All countries must look to maximize the potential of broadband. This means creating long-term national broadband plans that evolve around three basic phases of broadband adoption:

  • Phase 1: Fast deployment of basic connectivity (most likely focusing on wireless technologies)
  • Phase 2: Continued rollout of fixed-broadband access to 100% of premises
  • Phase 3: Continued investment in advanced broadband technologies to move to gigabit societies and beyond.

In order to help facilitate this evolution to advanced broadband networks, government organizations and regulators must consider:

  • Implementing regulatory flexibility, including the removal of outdated or non-essential regulation
  • Introducing flexibility in partnership arrangements; for example, allowing agreements between players, such as co-financing, collaborative models, public-private partnerships, etc.
  • Facilitating deployment through municipality approvals, using existing resources (government buildings, streetlights, ducts, etc.) and sharing infrastructure and facilities, including in-building networks. This should also include other types of utility infrastructure where possible
  • Providing financial assistance through investment support, incentives, and subsidies; e.g., universal service funds
  • Improving access to telecom facilities and physical infrastructure; improving procedures for rights of way and accessing public infrastructure, as well as broadband mapping.
Making the Recommendations a Reality

Operators, enterprises, vendors, regulators, and policy-makers should seek to create a collective voice, to evangelize, advocate, co-create, and partner in the drive toward the provision of ultra-broadband networks and services for all. Organizations such as the WBBA can help by influencing key stakeholders through discussion, education, and promotion. Specifically, the WBBA should aim to:

  • Set out the importance of greater broadband investment, not just for the good of the service provider but for countries as a whole
  • Promote regulatory, legislative, public relations agendas that help advance the interests of members through WBBA publications and live events, highlighting best-practice business models from around the world to remove any “lack of understanding at boardroom level”
  • Influence through research, discussion, and promotion of new potential marketing or naming concepts for fixed broadband to ease mass-market understanding of the different generations of broadband access – hiding technical jargon such as “Mbps,” “latency,” and “jitter” from the customer
  • Through thought leadership, media activity, and live events, continue to make the case for what governments need to recognize and do to close the industry innovation, socioeconomic, and environmental benefit gaps through infrastructure investment
  • Explore through new research the challenges and opportunities arising from changes in the industry structure, addressing its impact on the business and the standardization landscape. This includes aspects of fiber wholesale, the move toward horizontal industry structure with separation of infrastructure and services, and the change of customer relationship to digital
  • Work with stakeholder partners to understand and promote the potential of future applications that will bring new benefits to broadband customers and wider society
  • Develop in-depth thought-leadership research on the new revenue opportunities advanced networks can provide to service providers in both the consumer and enterprise markets
  • Develop and highlight best-practice investment models that show the true return on investment of a full-fiber rollout to both private companies and government organizations
  • Champion the needs of its members to highlight barriers to future investment, creating a platform to enable open discussion between different types of stakeholder to encourage greater cooperation and new partnerships.