The Internet Telephony Services Providers' Association (ITSPA) announced the winners of the inaugural ITSPA Awards yesterday to recognise the best in the VoIP and Unified Communications space. The prestigious awards was co-hosted by Ian Taylor MP and Derek Wyatt MP and held in the Members Dining Room at the House of Commons. Each award category was selected from a shortlist that was decided by a group of independent judges. The judges then selected a winner and also commended one of the other finalists for their product performance.
The Award Winners were:
Best Consumer VoIP: BT (BT Broadband Talk)
Best Business ITSP: Gradwell Dotcom
Best Unified Solution: Timico
Best VoIP Hardware: Cisco (Cisco Voice System)
Best VoIP Innovation: AQL (AQL SMS Relay)
Those Highly Commended were:
Best Consumer VoIP category: Vonage (V-Plan)
Best Business ITSP category: Viatel
Best Unified Solution category: Shoretel
Best VoIP Hardware category: Vegastream (Vegastream VoIP Gateways)
Best VoIP Innovation category: Voxbone (Inbound services)
Eli Katz (ITSPA Chairman) also announced plans for ITSPA to introduce a quality mark in 2009 for ITSPA members to aspire to. He said "The aim of the ITSPA quality mark is to help consumers recognise those companies who go that extra mile in ensuring best practice. On a day when we have recognised those who have excelled in the VoIP industry, it seems appropriate to take stock and raise the bar further to ensure our industry continues to improve in the future."
The general principle of the quality mark has gained support from Ofcom:
Stuart McIntosh, Ofcom’s Competition Partner said: "Ofcom welcomes the introduction of ITSPA's new scheme. While this is a very positive step, Ofcom will continue to monitor this area to make sure it delivers real benefits to customers."
The 2008 ITSPA Awards were open to all those in the VoIP space, including those who were not members of ITSPA.
