The UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has just unveiled the winners of their 22nd annual 2020 internet industry and broadband awards, which among other categories saw CommunityFibre scoop the win for “Best Consumer ISP“, while Jurassic Fibre secured “Best New ISP” and Gigaclear won “Best Rural ISP.”
As usual the awards were all independently judged by a “panel of industry experts” (people from Cloudflare, Point Topic, Accenture etc.), while ISPs, web hosts and VoIP providers underwent some “technical testing” (i.e. this usually involves downstream / upstream throughput, HTTP speed, DNS lookup time and ping times etc.). One key difference this time is that, due to the COVID-19 crisis, the ISPA ended up holding a distinctly less flashy online ceremony to announce the winners.
This year’s event also added three new categories: “Best New ISP” (for ISPs that started offering services from 2018), the “Social Impact Award” (for the company that has used the internet to deliver a positive social impact) and one for “Outstanding Individual Contribution” (this is open to all who have changed the industry for the better). At this time we don’t know who won the Outstanding Individual Contribution award.
Otherwise we expect that some readers may be surprised to see Gigaclear pick-up the best rural broadband award, given all of their rollout problems over the past couple of years. But it’s worth remembering that their network performance remains strong and they’re still one of the few rural ISPs deploying FTTP at any kind of scale in such areas.
We note that the Internet Hero award this year appears to have been more broadly given to all of the telecoms sector’s key workers, particularly engineers, who have continued to work hard, even during two COVID-19 lockdowns.
This year’s #InternetHero award is extra special. Thank you to everyone who has worked to keep the country connected, allowing us to stay in touch with friends and family, help children continue their education remotely and keep us informed. This is for you #ISPAawards #ISPAs2020 pic.twitter.com/LPn96jAO6w
— Internet Services Providers Association (ISPAUK) (@ISPAUK) November 18, 2020
The full list of categories and winners can be found below.
2020 ISPA UK Award Winners
Best Business ISP
Exa NetworksBest Hosted Provider
Storm InternetBest Consumer ISP
CommunityFibreBest Rural Broadband ISP
GigaclearBest Customer Solution
Talk StraightBest New ISP
Jurassic FibreBest Partnership
Exa NetworksBest Infrastructure
GlideSocial Impact Award
Exa NetworksBest Cyber Security
Talk StraightBest VoIP
VoipfoneBest Customer Service
Catalyst2
UPDATE 19th Nov 2020
The ISPA informs us that they decided not to proceed with the ‘Outstanding Individual Contribution’ award this year because feedback from the judges was that they should award team rather than just one person. Hopefully next time they’ll mention that in the press releases, instead of sweeping it under the digital carpet.
Unbelievable how Gigaclear were named Rural ISP. You shouldn’t be eligible just because you’ve put some fibre in the ground.
Surely the judges took a look at what the customers are saying?
Gigaclear have issues, they may start with the rollout, but they go way beyond that into delivery, reliability, customer service….
In these current times with many people working from home and kids with home education it’s more important to have a reliable service, not 900mb that leaves you without any internet for up to 2 weeks at a time!