GSMA Takes Top Honours at 2009 Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards

LONDON - GSMA Recognised for Leadership in Advancing Industry Standard Universal Charging Solution and Carrier ENUM Offering PathFinder

The GSMA, which represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry, received two awards at the third annual Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards held last evening. The GSMA with Orange took the award for the “Mains Charging Innovation” for the Universal Charging Solution (UCS) initiative, while the GSMA PathFinder Service was the recipient of the Editor’s Award honouring innovation by an industry association.

“We are extremely gratified to have been recognised by Global Telecoms Business and the entire panel of judges for both the Universal Charging Solution and for our PathFinder Service,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer for the GSMA. “The GSMA is focused on innovating, incubating and creating new opportunities for its membership, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile communications industry and these projects represent prime examples of that commitment to innovation.”

Hundreds of nominations for the industry’s innovative projects were received from the readers of Global Telecoms Business since early in 2009. The winners, as selected by the judging panel, represent the most innovative projects in the industry worldwide in five key categories: Fixed Network Infrastructure Innovation; Wireless Network Infrastructure Innovation; Wholesale Service Innovation; Business Service Innovation; Consumer Service Innovation.

Awards went to projects in each category, with each project, wherever possible, represented by a telecoms service provider and one or more suppliers. In addition, there are three editor’s awards, one for a company, one for an industry association and one for an individual, for their own contributions to the telecoms business.

“We were impressed by the quality and number of nominations this year - the most we have ever had - so it was a special triumph to be one of the winners this year,” said Alan Burkitt-Gray, editor, Global Telecoms Business. “These were both outstanding projects and well deserving of the awards.”

GSMA Universal Charging Solution

In February, the GSMA and 17 leading mobile operators and manufacturers announced their commitment to implement a cross-industry standard for a Universal Charging Solution for new mobile phones. Through the initiative, the mobile industry will adopt a common format for mobile phone charger connections and energy-efficient chargers, resulting in an estimated 50 per cent reduction in standby energy consumption and the potential elimination of up to 51,000 tonnes of duplicate chargers, as well as a greatly simplified charging experience for the end user.

The initial group of companies behind the GSMA’s UCS initiative include 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone. The group stated that by 2012 a universal charging solution will be widely available in the market worldwide and will use Micro-USB as the common universal charging interface. The group also agreed that by the 1st January 2012, the majority of all new mobile phone models available will support a universal charging connector and the majority of chargers shipped will meet the high efficiency targets set out by the OMTP (Open Mobile Terminal Platform), the industry body who developed the technical requirements behind UCS.

GSMA PathFinder Service

PathFinder, operated by NeuStar on behalf of the GSMA, is a managed service providing an interoperable, industry-wide solution that enables the routing of global IP service interconnect traffic. The service is based on the GSMA’s Carrier ENUM technology and acts as a central directory where operators can share mobile and fixed line addresses to allow the swift and cost-effective routing of packet voice, instant messaging, multimedia services, email and video. PathFinder streamlines and simplifies the delivery of IP-based services by identifying the IP address that maps to the phone number for individual mobile devices, fixed-line phones and IP devices.

About the GSMA

The GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organisations. The GSMA is focused on innovating, incubating and creating new opportunities for its membership, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile communications industry. For more information, please visit www.gsmworld.com

Source: GSMA

Daniel Lowther, +44-7747-636-687, or Richard Fogg, +44-7887-845-236, both of GSMA, press at gsm.org