The A1 Group Wholesale team was shortlisted in a total of 4 categories, the recognition was received for “Dark Fiber” in the category “Best European Project”

Each year, the industry celebrates innovative and brilliant projects within the Wholesale telecom´s largest platform, the Global Carrier Awards. This time, due to the circumstances, the event took virtually place, with more than 220 submissions and over 600 executives from the international community.

The Wholesale team of A1 Group took home the renowned award in the category “Best European Project” for “Dark Fiber”. This was the fourth time that the A1 Telekom Austria Group had won the coveted award. In 2013, the jury honored the company with the “Campaign of the Year Award”, followed in 2016 by the prize for the “Best European Project” and in 2018 for ”Best OTT Partnership“ with Carrier Billing.

“We are a leading telecommunications provider in the CEE region with approximately 25 million customers in our seven core markets. Our customers benefit from tailor made product combinations comprising fixed-line and mobile services. The Group’s high-performance broadband infrastructure provides a reliable basis in the fixed-line or fiber network as well as in the mobile network. To preserve and enhance their future readiness, the Group invested almost EUR 800 Mio. 2019, for increasingly intelligent and powerful networks that deliver a convincing customer experience. All these assets and keystones have been awarded by this fantastic recognition which serves as an accelerator for our team to keep on improving and working hard”, says Franz Bader, Director Wholesale A1 Telekom Austria Group.

Shortlisted Projects

Best European Project
Dark Fiber – Winner of the Global Carrier Awards 2020
A perfect coordination of A1 among several countries enabled the Group´s customers to start operating their network within 18 months. There have been lots of learnings out of the high amount of repeater locations (70 repeater and 8 Data Centers) in 9 different countries. A1 shows that it is able especially in the Balkans to provide service within 18 months. Long haul dark fiber projects with this length and size normally take in such region more than 24 months so the innovation was really the timeframe to install and the cooperation among the countries.

Project of the Year: Satellite
DTH & OTT Hybrid Solution for Mobile Operators & Broadcasters
Due to the strongly growing OTT market and the current customer’s requests, A1 Wholesale Broadcasting decided to implement an OTT Platform as add on service to the DTH or IPTV and to offer as well as a separate one. Another aspect for the project was the geographical factor of the markets. There has not been available any full end-to-end (DTH & OTT) hybrid solution for broadcasters and mobile operators in CEE & Western Europe so far.

Thus, A1 Wholesale Broadcasting decided to combine its DTH white label platform with the OTT one and to establish a massive cooperation between the satellite providers and the providers involved in the development of the OTT platform. On the satellite side, another aspect was the strategic partnership with APSTAR, which brings about differentiation to the marketplace. A1’s own teleport located in Aflenz allows the company to transfer the TV signal from many TV channels in Europe towards Asia and the other way round. The cooperation with APSTAR allows the customers of A1 to successfully overcome the bridge between Europe and Asia and to expand their business further. A1 Wholesale Broadcasting is the first one on the market to offer a technical distribution of TV channels from Europe directly to Asia. Even more, A1 is able to provide a very competitive pricing solution to new customers wishing to expand their business into the Asian region. In sum, with combined forces of A1 and APSTAR, customers will become empowered to go truly global in a diverse market.

Best OTT Partnership
A1 Xplore TV
Video content offerings are constantly changing. Linear broadcasters address their customers OTT, relevant content moves to OTT platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and YouTube. This ends up in freedom of choice for the customers but also in frustration because of the need to hold several subscriptions entering various platforms to consume the content. Linear channels and Blockbuster movies and Series offered via VoD are not yet dead. With the launch of A1 Xplore TV in March 2020, A1 launched a high-end TV box aggregating live TV channels, Video on Demand content and OTT Apps such as Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, YouTube Kids and ORF TVthek on one platform. This gives the customer simple access to all relevant content. Furthermore, the A1 Xplore TV platform provides a strong and intuitive upselling channel to 3rd party OTT services to drive partner revenues with the potential to become a 3rd party apps market place directly located in the customers living room. With constantly adding additional relevant 3rd party OTT services in the future, A1 will cement its position as a super aggregator in the TV field to blend all relevant content sources for its customers at one place. This converges the rising streaming viewing behaviorwith traditional linear TV channels and video on demand usage.

Best Pan-European Wholesale Carrier
A1 Wholesale
A1 Telekom Austria Group Wholesale is a full-service provider offering 360° services including voice, data, roaming, mobile and satellite. All these services are provided across Europe. With A1 Telekom Austria Group`s being part of the AMX Group, together they enable a consistent global network with its international terrestrial backbone network, consisting of PoPs in 47 countries worldwide. Based on its longstanding experience in the area of satellite communication and a complete portfolio of satellite-based services in more than 70 countries, A1 Telekom Austria Group is regarded as one of Europe’s leading satellite service providers. Within its global footprint, A1 Telekom Austria Group provides technology, knowhow and on-site services. Products are developed with strict focus on quality, innovation and customer orientation.