ISPA celebrates 26 years of internet excellence at the 2024 awards ceremony

The Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA UK), the UK’s trade association for providers of internet services, is pleased to reveal the winners of the 2024 ISPA Awards, which took place last night at Raffles London at The OWO. The big winners on the night included Brsk, Community Fibre, and Vorboss, all taking home two awards each.

Reflecting the industry’s growth and progress, the Awards included a range of new categories for its 25th year. These resulted in wins for Vorboss (Best Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion and Best Enterprise ISP), KCOM (Best Sustainability), Exa Networks (Best SME ISP), Vodafone (Best Digital Inclusion for Industry), and the Crumbs Project (Best Digital Inclusion for Charities).

These were in addition to the long-standing categories which always illustrate the sector’s strength in depth. Malcolm Corbett took home the annual Internet Hero award for his pivotal work in the altnets space, with other worthy winners including PXC (Best Channel Support) and Voipfone (Best Voice Provider). A full list of award winners and sponsors can be found below.

“The ISPA Awards is a wonderful occasion to come together and celebrate the breadth of the ISP sector’s achievements over the last 12 months. I was particularly pleased to see the range of winners this year, with providers large and small taking home well-deserved accolades. 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,” comments Steve Leighton, ISPA Chair.

The ISPA Awards is the longest-running and most prestigious internet industry awards in the UK. Thinkbroadband provides the technical testing data to shortlist the finalists, with the judging panel determining the ultimate winners across 18 categories.

We would also like to thank all the sponsors of the event, including Adtran, Altnets, Aprecomm, Calix, Ciena, Clarity, DrayTek, Eero, EPS Global, Genexis, Heights Telecom, IQGeo, Linksys, Magrathea, Netgem, Netskrt, Networks Centre, NexFibre, Plume, PSI, PXC, Strategic Imperatives, TP-Link, Vetro, and VIAVI Solutions.

ISPA Award Winners 2024

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: Community Fibre
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: Community Fibre
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 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.
BCS Bureau