ISPA Name Finalists for the 2018 UK ISP Internet Industry Awards

The UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has today revealed the finalists for their 20th annual industry awards, which sees some broadband providers being nominated several times across various different categories (e.g. Hyperoptic, Zen Internet, Community Fibre, Gigaclear).

As a quick recap, last year’s event saw Hyperoptic crowned for offering the ‘Best Superfast Broadband‘ and Gigaclear won the ‘Best Rural Broadband‘ award. Meanwhile Marcus Hutchins of the @Malwaretechblog picked up the ‘Internet Hero‘ award for finding the WannaCry killswitch and President Erdogan took home the title of ‘Internet Villain‘ for cracking down on online freedoms in Turkey.

This year the ISPA has added three new categories to their awards. Firstly, they’ve included a ‘20th Anniversary Award‘ to celebrate individuals, companies or initiatives that have provided consistently exceptional service for the past twenty years. On top of that they’ve also added the ‘Best Project or Partnership Award‘ to hail collaborative schemes and the ‘Best ISP PR Campaign‘ gong to praise promotional efforts.

Nicholas Lansman, ISPA UK Secretary General, said:

“This year’s shortlisted ISPA Awards finalists demonstrate the high calibre and diversity of ISPs across the UK, who continue to drive growth and innovation across the internet industry. 2018 marks the 20th year of the UK’s most prestigious awards for the UK industry and we look forward to announcing the winners on July 12th.”

As usual all of the new entrants for 2018 will be scrutinised by an “independent panel of industry experts,” while broadband ISPs, website hosts and VoIP providers must undergo technical testing. The shortlist for the ‘Internet Hero‘ and ‘Internet Villain‘ gongs tend to follow a little closer to the event and the public will shortly be asked to nominate who they want to win for these two categories.

Otherwise the winners will all be announced during an event held at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on the 12th July 2018.

2018 Award Categories and Finalists

Best Superfast Broadband
Ask4
CableCom Networking
Community Fibre
Hyperoptic
Sky
Virgin Media

Best Business Broadband
Exa Networks
Hyperoptic
Luminet
M24Seven
Virgin Media Business
WarwickNet

Best Rural Broadband
Airband
Beeline Broadband
Gigaclear
Oakford Internet Services
TrueSpeed Communications
Voneus

Best Customer Service
CableCom Networking
Daisy
Hyperoptic
Memset
Wifinity
Zen Internet

Best Wholesale ISP
Entanet International
Gamma
Zen Internet

Best Host
catalyst2
Heart Internet
Krystal Hosting Limited
MacAce
Memset
Storm Internet

Best ISP PR Campaign
Airband – Rural PR campaign
Ask4 – Connected Living Report
catalyst2 – AMEX campaign
EE – 4G Antenna
Hyperoptic – ‘UK first’ demonstration
Post Office – ‘Optimise & Improve’ PR & Comms campaign

Executive of the year
Jeremy Chelot – Community Fibre
Matthew Hare – Gigaclear
Gary Hall – MacAce
Tracey Wright – Magrathea
Oliver Bryssau – Origin Broadband

Best Security
catalyst2
F-Secure
Memset
NETSCOUT Arbor
Storm Internet
Talk Straight

Best VoIP
aql
Gamma
Gradwell Communications
iNet Telecoms Ltd (Voipfone)
Soho66
Telappliant

Project or Partnership
Community Fibre
Exa Networks
Nominet
UK Safer Internet Centre
Voneus
Wifinity

20th Anniversary Award
Entanet International
Gradwell Communications
Internet Watch Foundation
RM Education
Zen Internet

For more information go to:
https://www.ispa.org.uk/ispa-awards/