Mild Studying’s Main Lights Awards 2026: The Winners

On behalf of Mild Studying’s editors, it is my pleasure to conclude this yr’s Main Lights Awards by saying the winners.

The Main Lights is Mild Studying’s flagship awards program, recognizing the highest corporations and their executives for excellent achievements within the international communications trade. The awards program’s finalists and winners present a pleasant snapshot of the innovation, expertise prowess and distinctive companies that assist telecom, cable and cloud suppliers stand out.

We grew this system to 30 classes this yr. These lined new, rising applied sciences like agentic AI and community APIs, in addition to traditional communications infrastructure like optical methods and parts, information heart networking, satellite tv for pc and non-terrestrial networks, and broadband tools.

Our judging panel contributed their opinions and subject-area experience to assist us choose our finalists and winners. The judges included Dell’Oro Group’s Jeff Heynen, Siân Morgan and Jimmy Yu; our Omdia colleagues Ruth Brown, Gabriel Brown, James Crawshaw, Jim Frey, Jim Hodges, Inderpreet Kaur, Jaimie Lenderman, Sterling Perrin and Roz Roseboro; Recon Analytics’ Joe Salesky, Daryl Schoolar and XJ Wang; Opensignal’s Fiona Armstrong-Mills and Sylwia Kechiche; Core Evaluation’ Patrick Lopez; AvidThink’s Roy Chua; Finegold & Associates’ Ed Finegold; Ryan Jeffery from Passionate About OSS; Vertical Techniques Group’s Erin Dunne; and Ookla’s Kerry Baker, Mike Dano and Katherine Macdonald. The primary-round judges included Mild Studying’s workers editors, contributing editor Daybreak Bushaus, and our Informa TechTarget editorial colleagues, together with Armita Satari of Telecoms.com; InformationWeek’s Kelsey Ziser; TechTarget’s Jen English, Sharon Shea, Paul Crocetti and Sue Fogarty; and CIO Dive’s Nicole Laskowski.

In our judging course of, every choose scored the entries assigned and every declare was checked to the very best of our potential in opposition to our reporting, submitted information and the rest we might discover within the public area. As such, many entries that did not win merely didn’t show what they claimed with numbers, deployments, references or something we might confirm. The judges’ scores had been averaged, their feedback had been thought-about and a spherical of ultimate checks to every class’s highest-scoring entries was accomplished to vet the final word winners.

Beneath are the descriptions, finalists and winners for every class on this yr’s awards. The scoring margin between winners and finalists is slim in a number of classes. In case you are a finalist, you ought to be very proud.

Editor’s notice: In some classes, we checklist the finalists as our editors succinctly described the entry. Nonetheless, for winners, we use the entry’s correct title as given by the businesses or people who submitted it.

Firm of the 12 months

Awarded to the corporate – public or personal – that has distinguished itself from opponents by means of constant execution, relentless innovation and demonstrated enterprise momentum. This award acknowledges organizations that do not simply reply to trade change however drive it.

Finalists

Winner: Credo

Credo’s natural progress was off the charts this yr and its aggressive schedule of recent product launches mixed the innovation and execution that this class was asking for.

Government of the 12 months

Awarded to the senior govt who led with readability and conviction in a yr that demanded each. That is somebody whose imaginative and prescient and choices helped moved the dialog ahead for his or her firm, companions and friends.

Finalists

Winner: Gary Smith, President and CEO, Ciena

Smith’s regular management throughout an explosive progress part and new product launch helped return Ciena to the S&P 500 in February, 17 years after it was dropped. He is spent the yr arguing that the AI buildout was a community downside whereas many others had been obsessing over GPUs.

Most Modern Agentic AI Product or Answer

Awarded to the seller or service supplier with essentially the most revolutionary product or resolution that deploys autonomous AI brokers to carry out advanced, multi-step duties throughout communications networks or telecom enterprise operations.

Finalists

Winner: Altice Labs – NOSSIS Genius SENTINEL & NOSSIS Genius ARISE

Altice Labs’ brokers genuinely cooperate. Sentinel learns a behavioral baseline for every community factor, and Come up runs a reasoning layer over its personal causal graph, flagging uncertainty fairly than asserting a root trigger it could’t help.

Most Modern Broadband Product

Awarded to the corporate that has launched essentially the most revolutionary new product to allow the supply of high-speed broadband entry. Eligible merchandise might embrace fiber, cable, DSL or fastened wi-fi entry applied sciences and the platforms that help them.

Finalists

Winner: Tarana Wi-fi – Tarana G2

G2 runs on silicon Tarana spent 12 years and $400 million constructing fairly than repurposed 3GPP or Wi-Fi chips. It supplied the very best proof within the class, together with a 9.32-mile hyperlink measured at three configurations and a manufacturing sector of 186 customers the place RF utilization fell 16% after the improve.

Most Modern Cloud Product or Answer

Awarded to the service supplier, cloud supplier or vendor that has launched essentially the most revolutionary cloud-native, communications-focused product or resolution throughout the previous yr. Eligible entries ought to show how cloud ideas – scalability, flexibility and automation – are utilized to advance communications companies or community operations.

Finalists

Winner: Singtel – RE:AI

RE:AI is the one entry within the class the place the service is the cloud supplier fairly than a cloud client, promoting GPU capability, fashions and platform companies out of Singtel’s information facilities. One choose described it as a “full AI ecosystem from subsea cables to compute.”

Most Modern Community API Product or Platform

Awarded to the seller, service supplier or platform developer with essentially the most revolutionary product or platform that exposes community capabilities as programmable APIs for builders, enterprises or different operators. Eligible entries might embrace CAMARA-aligned options, Open Gateway implementations, network-as-code platforms or any product that allows third events to construct companies on high of community capabilities.

Finalists

Winner: LotusFlare – LFAMP

Class judges singled out consent administration, which regularly holds up industrial deployment of Location, KYC Match and Quantity Confirm throughout jurisdictions; one wrote that the platform “goes past plain API publicity to deal with each industrial and regulatory bottlenecks.”

Most Modern New Networking Product (Cloud or Information Middle)

Awarded to the seller with essentially the most revolutionary new routing, switching or different networking product (IP or Ethernet) purpose-built for hyperscaler or information heart networks. Entries ought to show significant advances in throughput, latency, energy effectivity or programmability for AI infrastructure and cloud-scale workloads.

Finalists

Winner: Ciena – DCOM

DCOM rethinks the least glamorous layer within the information heart, changing copper-based out-of-band administration and the aggregation tier that goes with it, by constructing PON straight into the routing platform and provisioning hundreds of endpoints by means of one IP interface. The entry credit Meta’s function in growing the product.

Most Modern Optical Networking Product or Answer (Parts)

Awarded to the seller with essentially the most revolutionary optical element – together with transceivers, amplifiers, filters, modulators or different photonic gadgets – that advances the efficiency, density or effectivity of optical transport, information heart or AI infrastructure networks. Eligible entries might embrace parts purpose-built for long-haul and metro transport in addition to these designed for hyperscaler, cloud or AI cluster interconnect functions. Entries ought to replicate a big step ahead within the constructing blocks that allow high-capacity optical connectivity.

Finalists

Winner: Credo – ZeroFlap Optical Transceivers

Credo took a mature constructing block and gave it a nervous system: on-module telemetry, non-volatile occasion logging and the power to drag a degrading hyperlink out of service. It is the one entry within the class transport to named clients and being standardized by means of the Open Compute Challenge optics reliability workstream.

Most Modern Optical Networking Product or Answer (Techniques)

Awarded to the seller with essentially the most revolutionary optical networking system – together with line methods, ROADM platforms, optical transport community (OTN) tools or coherent transmission methods – that advances the capability, attain or manageability of optical transport networks. Eligible entries embrace each long-haul and metro optical methods.

Finalists

Winner: ZTE Company – HI-OTN Answer

This was the one unanimous 10 from the judges in any class this yr. HI-OTN was deployed with Türk Telekom in March, on a reside community in Istanbul, in what ZTE describes because the world’s first C+L full-band built-in 1.6 Tbit/s trial.

Most Modern RAN Product or Answer

Awarded to the seller with essentially the most revolutionary radio entry community (RAN) product or resolution launched or considerably improved throughout the previous yr. Eligible entries might embrace open RAN, vRAN, huge MIMO, small cells or RAN automation and intelligence options.

Finalists

Winner: MaxLinear – Sierra

One choose known as Sierra “the strongest entry on this class.” The reasoning: radio provide, not interface openness, has been the true constraint on open RAN, and service provider radio silicon offers OEMs capabilities that when required an in-house ASIC staff. The entry was technically fascinating and included efficiency figures within the entry and public paperwork.

Most Modern Satellite tv for pc or Non-Terrestrial Community Product or Answer

Awarded to the seller or service supplier with essentially the most revolutionary product or resolution in satellite tv for pc or non-terrestrial community (NTN) connectivity, together with low-Earth orbit (LEO), medium-Earth orbit (MEO) or geostationary (GEO) methods. Eligible entries might embrace direct-to-device satellite tv for pc expertise, satellite-terrestrial integration platforms, floor phase tools or NTN-enabled companies.

Finalists

Winner: Mavenir – Full-Stack NTN Platform

Mavenir’s platform provides satellite-terrestrial integration within the area, spanning GEO, MEO and LEO and 3G by means of 5G on a converged core that treats non-terrestrial entry as native fairly than an overlay.

Most Modern Telco AI/ML Product or Answer

Awarded to the seller or service supplier with a product or resolution that creatively applies AI or machine studying to help the altering wants of communications community operators. Eligible entries might cowl community optimization, predictive upkeep, site visitors administration, vitality effectivity or any AI/ML utility that measurably improves community or operational efficiency.

Finalists

Winner: Federated Wi-fi – Spectrum AI

All the things else on this class automates a workflow above the community. Spectrum AI fashions the bodily system the community runs inside, and as one choose put it, “making use of ML on the RF layer to propagation, interference and coordination is a unique order of downside from optimizing workflows above the community.”

Most Modern Telecom Safety Product or Answer

Awarded to the seller or service supplier with essentially the most revolutionary product or resolution that protects communications networks, infrastructure or subscribers from cyber threats, fraud or unauthorized entry. Eligible entries might embrace community safety platforms, zero-trust architectures, AI-driven menace detection, signaling safety or options addressing the precise vulnerabilities of 5G, open RAN or cloud-native community environments.

Finalists

Winner: Singtel – Hybrid Quantum-Protected Community

Quantum key distribution is powerful however restricted by distance and endpoint depend, and post-quantum cryptography scales however is software program. Singtel’s reply is to make use of every the place it matches: QKD on high-bandwidth mission-critical hyperlinks and PQC out to branches, ATMs and cellular models. It then orchestrates each key sorts by means of one framework, which one choose known as “the correct design.”

Most Modern Telecom Software program (OSS/BSS) Product or Answer

Awarded to the seller offering essentially the most revolutionary resolution that helps CSPs evolve and enhance their IT again workplace (OSS/BSS/CX), making their networks extra environment friendly and delivering a greater buyer expertise. Eligible entries might embrace billing and income administration, community orchestration, service achievement, buyer administration or AI-enhanced operational software program platforms.

Finalists

Winner: Rakuten Symphony – Rakuten Symphony OSS

One choose’s abstract stated all of it: “Rakuten stood out as a result of it’s fixing a genuinely new OSS downside… That appears like real product innovation fairly than including AI to one thing that already existed.”

Most Modern Check & Measurement Product or Answer

Awarded to the methods vendor with essentially the most revolutionary new resolution that aids communications service suppliers in community testing, measurement, monitoring or assurance. Eligible entries might cowl lab or area take a look at tools, community efficiency monitoring, service high quality assurance or automated testing platforms.

Finalists

Winner: Spirent Communications – Landslide AI Agent

Spirent describes it as the primary domain-trained agentic AI resolution for community testing. One choose preferred {that a} take a look at and measurement firm is taking the issue on in any respect after watching startups and Tier 1s run at it for years.

Excellent Use Case: AI-Pushed Broadband & Entry Networks

Awarded to the corporate presenting essentially the most compelling instance of how AI or machine studying is being utilized to broadband or fastened entry networks to enhance efficiency, subscriber expertise or operational effectivity. Eligible entries might embrace AI-powered community administration platforms, clever capability planning, proactive fault detection or personalised subscriber expertise instruments deployed in fiber, cable or fastened wi-fi entry environments.

Finalists

Winner: TIME dotCom and Huawei Applied sciences – AI-Pushed HBB Clever O&M

When requested about its outcomes, TIME & Huawei was the one entrant on this class to reply with baselines and comparative information. TIME & Huawei named its approach and validated its mannequin, reporting an 80% match between the customers its system scored as in danger and those that truly known as to complain.

Excellent Use Case: 5G/6G Innovation

This award is for the corporate that shares an excellent instance of how 5G or pre-standard 6G community expertise brings measurable outcomes to a enterprise, authorities or different group. Entries ought to show real-world deployment outcomes, not theoretical capabilities.

Finalists

Winner: ZTE and China Cell – Pre6G GigaMIMO

Operators usually purchase capability with spectrum or with websites. GigaMIMO buys it with area, synchronizing overlapping cells in order that they behave as one coordinated antenna array. In a area trial on China Cell Hubei’s reside industrial 5G-A community in Wuhan, it delivered a 26.5% common throughput achieve and two to 6 instances the person expertise price in overlapping protection. One choose known as it “a bridge expertise; it may be deployed throughout 5GA however proceed to reside on properly into the 6G period.”

Excellent Use Case: AI/Machine Studying

Awarded to the corporate that’s utilizing synthetic intelligence or machine studying in an revolutionary means to enhance community efficiency, customer support or enterprise operations for a communications service supplier community. Entries ought to spotlight measurable outcomes and the precise AI or ML methods employed.

Finalists

Winner: Optus Australia and Ericsson – AI-Native RAN Optimization

On this use case, reinforcement studying replaces static link-adaptation guidelines and the protection prediction mannequin retrains regionally for each particular person cell, as a result of protection conduct is native. One choose stated this use case is “leveraging AI in a really telco-specific means.” The trial on Optus’ reside industrial 5G community measured a achieve of greater than 20% in cell-level downlink throughput in medium-to-poor radio circumstances.

Excellent Use Case: Bridging the Digital Divide

Awarded to the corporate or establishment presenting the very best instance of how it’s efficiently working to broaden entry and cut back the boundaries to reasonably priced Web connectivity for underserved communities. Eligible entries might embrace rural broadband deployments, subsidy or affordability packages, digital literacy initiatives or public-private partnerships aimed toward closing the connectivity hole.

Finalists

Winner: Fidium, Lincoln County, and the Maine Connectivity Authority

This entry lined a rural fiber construct, an affordability mechanism, a digital literacy element by means of the Nationwide Digital Fairness Middle, and a real public-private construction with outlined roles for every social gathering. The construct ran from January to August 2025 at roughly $30 million, with $21.8 million of it in Fidium’s personal capital. The personal majority is why the community should be working in ten years fairly than changing into a stranded asset.

Excellent Use Case: Buyer Expertise

Awarded to the corporate that used its communications expertise or community to ship a superior expertise to enterprise, client or authorities clients. Eligible entries ought to show how expertise – together with AI, automation, self-service or community enhancements – straight improved buyer satisfaction, lowered friction or created measurable loyalty good points.

Finalists

Winner: Netcracker Expertise

Working contained in the wholesale enterprise of a serious US operator, Netcracker reduce contract interpretation from 5 to 10 days all the way down to beneath one, companion configuration from two or three days to beneath half-hour, and first-pass bill evaluation from greater than two hours to beneath 30, with rework falling from 12-18% to beneath 5% throughout a yr of sustained manufacturing. One choose known as it “the strongest proof, greatest outcomes” within the class.

Excellent Use Case: Vitality Effectivity & Sustainability

Awarded to the seller or service supplier presenting essentially the most compelling instance of how they lowered vitality consumption, improved energy effectivity or superior sustainability objectives throughout a communications community or information heart surroundings. Eligible entries might embrace AI-driven vitality optimization, renewable vitality deployments, cooling improvements, community consolidation initiatives or any measurable effort to scale back the carbon footprint or working prices of communications infrastructure.

Finalists

Winner: Deutsche Telekom – Full Stack Vitality Effectivity

DT achieved as much as 65% off-peak vitality financial savings within the 5G core in opposition to an authentic goal of fifty%, measured throughout 4 purpose-built lab methods with managed variables. One choose noticed that “the financial savings had been achieved with current {hardware}. This isn’t frequent, as many different distributors/telcos declare these with new-gen silicon.”

Excellent Use Case: Fastened Wi-fi & Broadband Innovation

Awarded to the corporate with an excellent instance of a profitable fastened wi-fi entry (FWA) or revolutionary broadband deployment that expanded protection, improved speeds or served a beforehand underserved market. Eligible entries might embrace client, enterprise or wholesale deployments leveraging 4G, 5G or millimeter wave expertise.

Finalists

Winner: Nextlink Web and Tarana Wi-fi – Tarana G2 BEAD deployments

Nextlink lit the primary tower within the nation funded beneath BEAD, serving 104 places in southern Bienville Parish, Louisiana, at gigabit-class speeds. BEAD places are underserved by federal definition, making this a uncommon entry that satisfies all three of the class’s assessments directly: new protection, higher speeds and a market no one else was serving.

Excellent Use Case: Excessive-Capability Transport & Optical Innovation

Awarded to the seller, operator or hyperscaler presenting essentially the most compelling instance of how superior optical or high-capacity transport networking solved a real-world connectivity problem. Eligible entries might embrace AI information heart interconnect deployments, long-haul capability expansions, submarine cable improvements or metro optical upgrades that show measurable good points in throughput, latency or effectivity.

Finalists

Winner: HFCL Restricted – IBR Microcable Household

Fiber counts matter, as one choose defined: “With DWDM very near max spectral effectivity, greater fiber depend is the best method to enhance capability. The 200 micron permits hyperscalers to squeeze extra fiber in current ducts instantly, fairly than wait for brand new development.” The judges favored the entry for submitting a industrial deployment fairly than a trial.

Excellent Use Case: IoT

Awarded to the corporate presenting essentially the most revolutionary and impactful use of Web of Issues expertise over a communications community. Eligible entries ought to show how linked gadgets, sensors or IoT platforms delivered measurable enterprise, operational or societal worth in industries reminiscent of manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, sensible cities or logistics.

Finalists

Winner: Deutsche Telekom IoT GmbH and Mavenir – Distant Packet Core for Related Automobiles

Conserving the management airplane in Europe whereas breaking site visitors out regionally in North America solutions latency, transit price and information sovereignty with one structure. One choose known as the distributed UPF design “a legit technical achievement.” It’s reside in manufacturing, carrying linked automotive companies for Deutsche Telekom’s IoT enterprise.

Excellent Use Case: Monetization & New Income Fashions

Awarded to the seller or service supplier presenting essentially the most compelling instance of how they unlocked new income streams or remodeled their enterprise mannequin utilizing community capabilities, platforms or digital companies. Eligible entries might embrace network-as-a-service choices, platform-based income fashions, digital transformation of the income stack or any initiative that demonstrably expanded industrial alternative past conventional connectivity companies.

Finalists

Winner: Telstra and Ericsson – Telstra Dynamic 5G

Enterprises purchase a dedicated throughput tier by the hour, and if Telstra misses the dedication, the client is not charged for that interval. Slicing monetization has been the trade’s most-promised and least-delivered proposition for years. As one choose put it, “whereas the trade has lagged in delivering differentiation with 5G SA, Telstra is offering a shining instance for operators throughout the globe.”

Excellent Use Case: Community API Monetization

Awarded to the operator, vendor or developer platform presenting essentially the most compelling instance of how community APIs had been uncovered, commercialized or used to ship new worth to enterprise clients or third-party builders. Eligible entries might embrace CAMARA or Open Gateway deployments, API market implementations or particular enterprise functions constructed on programmable community capabilities that generated measurable enterprise outcomes.

Finalists

Winner: Motive, Vivo Brazil and Telefónica

Vivo grew to become the primary operator in Latin America to launch SIM-based silent authentication by means of the GSMA Open Gateway framework, changing the SMS one-time password with one thing the community already is aware of. One choose wrote: “This appears like a real instance of turning a community functionality right into a industrial product fairly than merely placing an API in entrance of current information.”

Excellent Use Case: Community Modernization & Automation

Awarded to the seller or service supplier showcasing essentially the most compelling instance of how community modernization – together with cloud-native transformation, community orchestration, automation and AI-enabled operations the place they serve broader transformation objectives – delivered measurable enhancements in operational effectivity, agility or price discount. Eligible entries might cowl core community upgrades, OSS/BSS modernization, multi-domain automation or any initiative that meaningfully accelerates the evolution from legacy to trendy community operations.

Finalists

Winner: Deutsche Telekom, Amdocs, HPE, Mavenir and Nokia – Horizontal Telco Cloud

Deutsche Telekom modified its community structure and working mannequin, changing per-application vendor platforms with a single horizontal, automation-first cloud throughout greater than ten German information facilities and performing as its personal prime integrator throughout roughly 40 distributors.

Excellent Use Case: Community Safety & Resilience

Awarded to the seller or service supplier presenting essentially the most compelling instance of how they protected a communications community, its infrastructure or its subscribers from cyber threats, fraud or service disruption. Eligible entries ought to show real-world deployment outcomes, together with the precise menace panorama addressed, the answer deployed and the measurable enchancment in safety posture or community resilience.

Finalists

Winner: China Unicom, Huawei Applied sciences and Peking College – CARSI 5G Free-Mobility Personal Community

The college, not the operator, stays the only real id authority: China Unicom carries the site visitors and steers campus-bound classes off the general public path, whereas authentication returns to Peking College’s CARSI id supplier. One choose pointed to the mannequin’s “vital replication potential” throughout the roughly 700 universities already on CARSI.

Excellent Use Case: Personal Wi-fi Networks

Awarded to the corporate with an excellent instance of a profitable personal wi-fi community deployment for an enterprise, authorities or industrial buyer. Eligible entries might embrace personal 5G, personal LTE or campus wi-fi deployments throughout industries reminiscent of manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, mining, ports or sensible amenities, with emphasis on measurable operational or enterprise outcomes.

Finalists

Winner: Excessive Networks and Honda Middle

Honda Middle is the primary large-scale AFC-enabled Customary Energy 6GHz Wi-Fi deployment within the US, with 407 entry factors throughout the bowl and concourses. One choose known as it a “nice actual technical implementation in a reside setting.”

Congratulations to all of the winners and finalists and due to everybody who entered the Main Lights.