Customer Acquisition Award
For the operator that turned build into take-up.
Networks only matter when people use them. This award recognises the most effective customer acquisition work in the independent sector: campaigns, propositions or channel strategies that measurably moved penetration.
Judges look for: Measurable take-up gains (before and after), cost-efficiency of acquisition, creativity in reaching hard-to-convince customers, and evidence the growth stuck.
2025 winner: WightFibre
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Outstanding Delivery of New Infrastructure
For the build that set the standard.
Recognises excellence in the delivery of new network infrastructure: pace, quality, innovation in method, and minimal disruption to the communities being built through.
Judges look for: Scale and pace relative to resources, build quality and as-built documentation, innovative techniques, community and highways relationships during the build.
2025 winner: Xantaro
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Best Social Value
For impact beyond the network.
Connectivity changes places. This award recognises the member whose work delivered the clearest social value: digital inclusion, skills, community investment, or support for those the market leaves behind.
Judges look for: Genuine outcomes for people (not spend figures), reach into digitally excluded groups, partnerships with community organisations, and sustainability of the impact.
2025 winner: WightFibre
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Best Public Sector or Community Project
For what partnership makes possible.
Recognises an outstanding project delivered by or with the public sector or a community: councils, combined authorities, health, education, or community-led schemes.
Judges look for: Clarity of the public benefit, quality of the partnership working, replicability for other areas, and what the project unlocked that would not otherwise have happened.
2025 winner: Oxfordshire County Council
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Health and Safety Leadership
For making the industry safer.
Building networks is physical, fast-moving work. This award recognises the organisation that raised the bar on health and safety: culture, systems, innovation or leadership that protects the people doing the building.
Judges look for: Measurable safety outcomes, culture change not just compliance, innovation that others could adopt, and leadership visible from the top.
2025 winner: ITS
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Rising Star
For the person your team could not do without.
The independent sector runs on talent that joined it recently and chose to stay. Rising Star recognises an individual early in their career in the sector whose contribution already stands out, in any discipline: engineering, operations, commercial, community.
Judges look for: Impact beyond the job description, growth trajectory, and the difference colleagues say this person makes.
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