MEF Awards Innovation
As the great Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast, If you don’t stop and take a look around every once in a while, you could miss it.” In the world of Web-scale, these words ring truer today than ever before; innovation is steering the ship, so it’s important to take the time to survey the field. Industry events serve as a means to highlight industry innovation.
Loews Sapphire Falls Resort in Orlando was the site for MEF17, and the show certainly did not disappoint. It boasts being, “The world’s premier networking opportunity for executives and other service and technology professionals committed to reshaping the communications landscape,” and some of the innovation highlighted in the show’s awards cements why.
With a focus on emerging network services supported by Lifecycle Service Operation (LSO), SDN, NFV and Carrier Ethernet MEF places this center stage. See the award winners from the event below:
Special Awards
- Best SD-WAN Managed Service – CenturyLink
- LSO Leadership – AT&T, Colt, Orange Business Services, CenturyLink / Level 3
- Best Marketing – Colt
Network and Service Innovation
- Global – AT&T
- North America – AT&T
- Europe – Colt
- Asia Pacific – SK Telecom
- Caribbean & Latin America – C&W Networks
Wholesale Service Provider of the Year
- Global – PCCW Global
- North America – CenturyLink / Level 3
- Europe – Colt
- Asia Pacific – PLDT
- Caribbean & Latin America – Ufinet
- Middle East & Africa – Liquid Telecom
Retail Service Provider of the Year
- Global – CenturyLink / Level 3
- North America – AT&T and CenturyLink / Level 3 (Tie)
- Europe – Colt
- Asia Pacific – PLDT
Enterprise Application of the Year
- Business Process Services – PLDT
- Cloud Connectivity – Tata Communications
- Education – Colt
- Finance – Tata Communications
- Government – Verizon
- Health – Comcast Business
- IT Services – Colt
- Media – Sparkle and Vertical Telecoms Pty Limited (Vertel) (Tie)
- Sports & Entertainment – Comcast Business
- Government Demonstration – CenturyLink / Level 3
Third Network Technology Solutions Award Winners
- Carrier Ethernet – ADVA Optical Networking
- Service Analytics – Ciena
- Service Assurance – CENX
- Service Orchestration – Ciena
- Service Virtualization – Accedian Networks
- Multi-Vendor – NoviFlow and Lumina Networks
- SD-WAN – Nokia/Nuage
Professional Award Winners
- Industry Executive of the Year – Hans Vestberg, Executive VP and President of Global Networks and CTO, Verizon
- MEF Distinguished Fellow – Scott Mansfield, Standardization Researcher, Development Unit Network Products, Ericsson
- MEF Carrier Ethernet Certified Professional (MEF-CECP) of the Year – Bartosz Michalik, Technical Architect, Amartus
“We continue to see amazing service and technology innovations year-over-year in the MEF Awards program, and are thrilled to witness the advances being made to accelerate development and delivery of agile, assured, and orchestrated services,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF. “We are pleased to congratulate the 2017 Award Winners, and look forward to seeing more innovation from them as we move into 2018.”
Web-scale networking is making waves on the wings of software-defined solutions and innovation. What’s in your network?
Edited by Mandi Nowitz
