The Femto Forum has announced the winners of the Femto Forum Femtocell Industry Awards 2010. The awards recognize outstanding achievement within, and contributions to, the femtocell industry. The awards were presented at a gala dinner at the Femtocells World Summit in London last night.

Huawei, Ubiquisys, NEC, Airvana, picoChip, AT&T, Continuous Computing & Vodafone won awards in different categories.

Huawei won award in "Residential femtocell access point design and technology innovation" category. Huawei's Home Media Center includes a broad set of audiovisual capabilities such as video storage, on top of the femto module, which can help it attain a permanent role in a subscriber's home, agreed the judges.

Airvana won awards in "Femtocell application concept" & "Contribution to femtocell standards" categories where as Ubiquisys & picoChip won awards in "Greater femtocell (enterprise and other) design and technology innovation" & "Progress in commercial deployment" category respectively.

AT&T & Vodafone were also awarded for commercial femtocell deployments by Femto Forum. 

On Vodafone Judges said, while we in the industry have known about femtocells for many years, the wider public have been unaware of their existence and benefits. The Vodafone marketing campaign changed all that. In a well-crafted and multi-faceted campaign they showed consumers how they could achieve coverage in their home and changed the role and perception of cellular communications. They have done a great deal to advance the success of femtocells and fully deserve to be recognised for this.

‘The judges were enormously impressed with the high calibre of award submissions which reflect the continued growth and strength of innovation within the femtocell industry,” said Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum. “The femtocell industry has seen spectacular growth over the past year. Growing numbers of operator deployments across Asia, North America and Europe may have stolen the headlines but in the background the industry has been paving the way for the next generation of rollouts which will incorporate exciting new services and extend beyond the home into the enterprise and outdoors. These awards recognize and reward all this progress and our congratulations go to the winners and all those who participated.”