AfricaCom Awards 2011 expands categories

The AfricaCom Awards 2011 are will take place in Cape Town on 10 November in the evening.  Previous awards categories such as The Changing Lives, The Best Marketing Campaign and the Best Pan African Initiative Awards, will be bolstered by the introduction of six new categories acknowledging the growth and importance of the telecoms and digital sectors across the African continent.

The six new categories are:

• The Rural Telecoms Award – which recognises an outstanding vendor solution, or operator/service provider initiative or service and which has extended and/or improved telecommunications services in rural and under-served Africa since November 2010.
• The Best Backhaul Solution for Africa Award – This award recognises a fibre, satellite, or wireless solutions provider that has significantly improved backhaul capacity, with measurable improvements in quality and reliability of service, for an operator in Africa since November 2010.
• The Customer Service Excellence Award – recognises an operator/ service provider that has ensured an excellent or greatly improved level of customer service to African consumers since November 2010.

• The Satellite Service Provider of the Year – recognises a Satellite operator that has made a significant contribution to improving coverage/ capacity/ cost of access, etc and has thereby improved telecommunication service provision in Africa since November 2010.

• The Best ICT Solution Provider for Enterprise Markets in Africa – recognises an ICT solutions provider that has delivered the most innovative and measurably successful service or solution for a customer in Africa’s enterprise markets (public sector, financial services;

• The esteemed Orange African Social Venture Prize – entries for this award must be made directly to Orange.