ISPA Unveil WINNERS of the 2024 UK ISP Internet Industry Awards UPDATE

The UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has tonight revealed the winners of their 26th annual 2024 internet industry and broadband awards, which among other things saw several providers taking home two awards each across different categories, including Brsk, CommunityFibre, and Vorboss.

The award categories were once again revised for this year’s event, not least through the introduction of several new categories, such as the award for Best Rural Infrastructure and Best Urban Infrastructure, as well as awards for Best Community Engagement; Best Sustainability; Best Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and finally the new Best SME ISP and Best Enterprise ISP awards.

Steve Leighton, ISPA Chair, said: “In a year which has seen our industry surge towards significant fibre rollout targets, a renewed focus on delivering high-quality services to our customers and the turbulence of a General Election, our sector has been tremendous. Our annual awards encapsulates this, showcasing the superb work from across the industry. I am proud to play host to the organisations going above and beyond, building the foundations of the nation’s digital economy and society.”

The winners were all crowned tonight at a gala ceremony in London, in front of more than 475 guests from across industry, which was hosted at the OWO Raffles Hotel in Whitehall (London). The results reflect the outcome of some limited technical testing by Thinkbroadband across several categories, as well as the use of a judging panel of 11 industry figures to help determine the ultimate winners across all 18 categories.

2024 ISPA UK Award Winners

Best Channel Support: PXC
Since its inception, PXC’s approach feels fresh and new, with truly comprehensive packages and an impressive Partner Programme. This allows PXC to provide impactful channel support to ISPs using their FTTP infrastructure, making them deserving winners.

Best Customer, Data, & Network Security: Talk Straight/Schools Broadband

Talk Straight/Schools Broadband has carried out truly impressive work in protecting thousands of schools up and down the country by allowing customers to have full control over their firewalls.

Best Rural Infrastructure: Openreach
Openreach’s full fibre rollout to rural areas has been outstanding this year, reaching over 16 million premises with more than 6 million additional customers set to be connected by the end of this year. An impressive feat!

Best Urban Infrastructure: Brsk

This year, Brsk’s growth and expansion has been unwavering. Although others have slowed their build, Brsk has reached new heights, with the number of installed customers increasing by a huge 308%.

Best Sustainability: KCOM
KCOM took home the first ever Best Sustainability award for their firm commitment in this area.

Their “One Network” project was particularly commended in its aim to reduce KCOM’s electricity consumption by 40% upon completion.

Best Voice Provider: Voipfone

Voipfone are seasoned winners of the Best Voice Provider award, with 2024 marking their 20th business anniversary. This year, their re-developed customer programme impressed the judges, deemed exemplary of Voipfone’s unwavering dedication to customer service.

Best Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion: Vorboss

Vorboss’ commitment to DE&I has resulted in a resounding third of their technical and engineering positions being filled by women, most of whom trained at their academy. Their policies and approach are encouraging significant progress in the sector.

Best SME ISP: Exa Networks

Exa Networks’ comprehensive ‘one-stop-shop’ service makes them deserving winners of the Best SME ISP award. Their investment in improving network reliability and capacity wowed the judges.

Best Enterprise ISP: Vorboss

Vorboss scooped up their second award of the evening for their success as an enterprise ISP. The reliability and performance of their speed innovations such as Light Maintenance Vehicle E-Bikes and their equipment ‘drop box’ are revolutionising the way their engineers travel and install equipment.

Best Customer Experience: Brsk

Another dual winner, Brsk received this award for top-quality overall customer feedback and innovating in their customer support approach with AI technologies.

Best Community Engagement: CommunityFibre

The ISPA judges were pleased to award the Best Community Engagement category to Community Fibre, whose community initiative programmes saw continuously positive outcomes over the course of the year.

Best Communications Campaign: Quickline

Quickline’s ‘broadband built for you’ campaign was a huge success, touching hearts across rural communities by casting the spotlight on local communities and featuring local heroes.

Best Digital Inclusion for Industry: Vodafone

This year, Vodafone’s team took a multi-faceted approach to minimising digital exclusion to great success, going beyond SIM donations to bridging the digital divide through a multitude of impactful initiatives. They have been very active in communities, and have delivered exceptionally well-executed programmes enhancing digital inclusion nationwide.

Best Digital Inclusion for Charities: The Crumbs Project

The Crumbs Project transforms the lives of adults with disabilities and mental health conditions through hospitality-based training, championing their digital inclusion, and advocating for their right to work and to feel included in society. A well deserved win!

Best Consumer ISP under 100k Customers: Lightning Fibre

Lightning Fibre impressed judges with their customer satisfaction scores, and their progress in delivering the fastest residential broadband in the region. They are also working effectively in connecting new affordable housing projects by offering one year of free connection to 10% of residents, and making great progress on some new projects undertaken since last year.

Best Consumer ISP over 100k Customers: CommunityFibre

Community Fibre took home their second award of the night for their stellar work in challenging some of the scale ISPs. Community Fibre has offered the fastest, and most sustainable connections, with consistent and affordable pricing and an impressive 100% full fibre capable Social Tariff.

Internet Hero: Malcom Corbett
Malcom Corbett received the Internet Hero award for dedicating his career to improving connectivity in the UK. He has been involved with the Internet from the very early days. In 2010 he established his own co-op in the form of INCA – the Independent Network Co-Operative Association when there were just a handful of start-up altnets with ambitions to take on established providers.

In 2013 INCA was instrumental in encouraging the Public Accounts Committee to review the Superfast programme, which led to Building Digital UK opening up to more competition.

It’s fair to say that many of ISPA’s members today would simply not exist without the groundbreaking work that Malcolm, and the team he built at INCA, have done in promoting a competitive industry.

UPDATE 22nd Nov 2024 @ 8:52am

The ISPA seems to have missed out the ‘Best Rural ISP‘ category from the list they sent out, which was won by Grayshott Gigabit (aka – Gigabit IQ).