11th Telecom Asia Awards 2008

Telstra claims Asia’s top telecom honors

Phuket, Thailand, April 8, 2008 – Australia’s biggest telco Telstra took out top honors in the Telecom Asia Awards here tonight, claiming the trophies for Best Asian Carrier and Best Mobile Carrier.

It is the first time the full-service provider has won either of the prestigious Awards, which have been presented annually to Asian service providers since 1998.

Executives from eight carriers from across the Asia-Pacific region were presented with their trophies tonight in a ceremony at the Indigo Pearl in Phuket.

Bill Barney, CEO of Hong Kong-based Pacnet, was voted Telecom CEO of the Year for his role in making the carrier one of the region’s leading managed services and capacity providers.

The new Telecom Innovation of the Year award went to Bangladesh cellular firm GrameenPhone for its CellBazaar service, which enables users to trade goods and services via a mobile device.

Joseph Waring, Telecom Asia Group Editor, said: “These awards are intended to reward outstanding performance in Asian telecommunications. Telstra’s successes are clearly recognition for its rapid rollout and launch of Next G, and the impact the mobile broadband service has had on the market.

“GrameenPhone’s achievements with CellBazaar show once more the remarkable potential of the mobile phone as a platform for innovation as well as its ability to narrow the digital divide.”

In other awards, Japan’s NTT Communications was voted Best Wholesale Carrier, UK-based Inmarsat took home the Best Satellite Carrier prize, and the fast-growing mobile broadband technology HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access), was voted Best New Technology.

Bharti Airtel claimed the Best Indian Carrier trophy.

Hong Kong’s PCCW, a pioneer in IPTV, and Philippines incumbent PLDT won the Best Broadband and Best Emerging Markets categories respectively for the fourth year in a row, while BT Asia Pacific was voted Best Managed Services Provider for the third year in succession.

The Telecom Asia Award winners were chosen by an independent judging panel for their financial, market, technology and corporate governance performance, backed by research by global IT and telecom consultancy firm Ovum.

Mr Waring said, “The depth and diversity of the winners underlines the good health and innovation evident in the industry today. I congratulate all of this year’s winners and thank Ovum and the judging panel for their contributions.”

About Telecom Asia
Telecom Asia is Asia's largest regional telecom publishing group. It publishes the magazines Telecom Asia and Wireless Asia and the Web site www.telecomasia.net, aimed at telecommunications professionals around the region. Combined, these titles serve more than 100,000 subscribers.

About About Intec Telecom
Intec supplies solutions to over 60 of the world’s top 100 telecoms carriers and is one of the world’s fastest growing major BSS/OSS (business and operations support systems) vendors. Intec’s 400 customers include AT&T, Cable & Wireless, The Carphone Warehouse (UK), China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Eircom (Ireland), France Telecom, Hutchison 3G, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Vodafone, Virgin Mobile, Vivo and Verizon. Intec works closely with its customers, many of whom have been with Intec since its inception, to provide the highest standards of performance, flexibility and robustness to help carriers service their customers effectively and profitably. Intec's comprehensive and expanding range of products, solutions and services includes:

• Retail billing and customer management
• Multi-service mediation and activation
• Inter-carrier billing settlements including US CABS and ITU-based settlement
• End-to-end content partner management
• Optimized wholesale routing and trading
• Real-time pre/post-paid mediation and charging
• Pre-integrated solutions for wholesale, wireless and core IMS charging functions

Founded in 1997, Intec is listed on the London Stock Exchange (ITL.L) and has over 1,700 staff and 31 offices in 25 countries.

For more information, visit the Intec website at www.intecbilling.com

About Ovum
Ovum’s primary activity is providing value-added advisory services and consulting to retain and project clients. The company acts as a well-respected and trusted source of industry data, knowledge and expertise on the commercial impact of technology, regulatory and market changes. Ovum engages in continuous research and industry analysis to determine market dynamics in its specialist sectors.
 
Ovum has developed long-standing relationships with many of its corporate clients, which include major international blue-chip companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, BT, Cable & Wireless, Cisco Systems, Deutsche Telekom, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Telstra and Vodafone.
 
Ovum is part of the Datamonitor Group.

TELECOM ASIA AWARDS 2008 WINNERS

Best Asian Telecom Carrier – Telstra Corp. (Australia)
Telecom CEO of the Year – Bill Barney, Pacnet (Hong Kong)
Best Mobile Carrier – Telstra Corp. (Australia)
Best Broadband Carrier – PCCW (Hong Kong)
Best Managed Services Provider – BT Asia Pacific (UK)
Best Wholesale Carrier – NTT Communications (Japan)
Best Emerging Markets Carrier – PLDT (Philippines)
Best Satellite Carrier – Inmarsat (UK)
Best Carrier India – Bharti Televentures (India)
Telecom Innovation of the Year – CellBazaar, GrameenPhone (Bangladesh)
Best New Tech – HSPA

Further information:
Robert Clark
Telecom Asia
+852 9183 9415
rclark@commschina.com