Winners and Speakers 2006

Orange Business Services has been named Best Global Carrier. And sister company Orange has been named Best Mobile Operator.

Among other notable awards, BT Fusion was named Best New Service of 2006. The judges described Fusion as "the original [fixed mobile service]—sparking a wave of FMC services." And VSNL International—the new supercarrier formed through the acquisition of Teleglobe, Tyco and ITXC by India's VSNL—won Best Wholesale Carrier.

Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google Inc., has been named Most Influential Person in Communications.Orange Business Services is the global managed services provider formerly known as Equant. Although Equant was effectively refinanced by the parent company [see Equant's day of reckoning, TTM February 2005] that was more than one year ago and followed up smartly by a relaunch under the Orange global brand.

This year the global operator has won a series of new contracts with companies and organisations including Arjowiggins, BAT and most recently the European Commission.Orange Business Services' win was a double achievement because it had to wrest the Global Carrier title from BT Global Services, which some judges said had gone even further in customer care and global network investment than the year it won.

"BT has powered forward in Europe and international markets," said one judge.BT Global Services was Highly Commended for its entries in Best Managed Services and Best Customer Care also.But what tipped the balance for judges this year was Orange's growing strength in converged fixed-mobile services, as well as its extra efforts in the Asia-Pac region, where it was able to show great testimonials from customers and evidence of deep support for services.

The WCAs celebrated their eighth year through the theme of the Future. A special award was made to Roshan as Best Operator in a Developing Market.