The World Communication Awards (WCA) were established in 1999 to recognise excellence amongst global telecom

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

 operators. The 2007 awards were presented in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on 28 November and drew an audience of more than 500 senior executives from the telecommunication industry.

Previous winners have come from every continent, and have included TeliaSonera International Carrier, Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel Limited , commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands. It operates a GSM network in all countries, providing 2G or 3G services depending upon the country of operation...

, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone

, commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked the 31st in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and the second-largest in the world in terms of revenue....

, BT Group

BT Group

BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...

, Orange and on a personal level EU

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 Commissioner Viviane Reding

Viviane Reding

Viviane Reding is a Luxembourgian politician, currently serving as European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship. Before starting a professional career as a journalist for the leading newspaper in Luxembourg, the Luxemburger Wort, she obtained a doctorate in human sciences...

.

The World Communication Awards are organised by Total Telecom and their owners Terrapinn. It celebrated its 10th year in 2008 with fifteen categories being presented, and with the chairman of the judges being David Molony

David Molony

David Molony was an Irish Fine Gael Party Senator and TD.Born in Thurles, County Tipperary, he qualified as a lawyer and in the 1970s he worked with , a voluntary group providing free legal aid, eventually became FLAC's chairperson.In 1977, he was elected to the 14th Seanad Éireann on the Cultural...

, former editor-in-chief of Total Telecom and now an analyst at consultants Ovum.

Over the years the WCA have become more wide ranging and international, with the 2007 winners including Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel Limited , commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands. It operates a GSM network in all countries, providing 2G or 3G services depending upon the country of operation...

, Minick, BT, NTT Comm

NTT Communications Corp

or NTT Com, is a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation - one of the world's largest telecommunications companies. NTT Com provides network management, security and solution services to consumers, corporations and governments....

, SpinVox

SpinVox

SpinVox is a subsidiary of global speech technology company Nuance Communications, headquartered in Marlow, UK and New York, NY. It provides voice-to-text conversion services for carrier markets, including wireless, fixed, VoIP and cable, as well as for unified communications, enterprise and Web...

, Afsat, Orange, ip.access, Botswana Telecom

Botswana Telecommunications Corporation

Botswana Telecommunications Corporation is a telecommunications and Internet service provider in Botswana. BTC is headquartered in Gaborone. It provides telecommunications services all over the country and the majority of its services are in the capital city, Gaborone and the second largest city,...

, TeliaSonera

TeliaSonera

TeliaSonera AB is the dominant telephone company and mobile network operator in Sweden and Finland. The company has operations in other countries in Northern, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Spain, with a total of 150 million mobile customers...

, and Vivian Reding.

Ariticle improvement notices

See also

• IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal
  IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal
  The IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal is an award honoring "exceptional contributions to the advancement of communications sciences and engineering" in the field of telecommunications...
  
  , an award for scientific and engineering achievements in telecommunications