KDDI's Okinaka, China Telecom, Sprint and others win CDG awards

GUANGZHOU, China — Dr. Hideo Okinaka, VP of emerging technologies and industry standards at KDDI Corp., was recognized for his industry leadership with an award from the CDMA Development Group.
The organization honored individuals and companies as part of its 2011 CDG Industry Achievement Awards and Smart Wireless Awards, presented at a reception at the Shangri-La Hotel during the third annual CDMA World Forum here this week. The CDG held the forum during the China Telecom Device Fair, a huge event where more than 300 device and chip manufacturers for China Telecom displayed wares. About 10,000 people attended the event. (RCR Wireless News was on hand and will post video from the event soon, as well as news from the CDG forum and news from the Global CDMA Operation and Development Forum 2011, which starts here today.)
During a light-hearted ceremony at the hotel, participants were both humble and funny in accepting their awards, given by CDG COO James Person and Joe Lawrence, director of marketing for the group.
KDDI also won the award for innovation in wireless social and economic solutions development, given to the company that has leverage CDMA2000 capabilities to offer a service that improves society, either through social or economic means.
KDDI had deployed an Earthquake Early Warning system in 2008 using SMS alarms over CDMA technology, which undoubtedly saved lives earlier this year, when Japan experienced one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded and subsequent tsunami.
Sprint Nextel Corp. won the operator leadership award, while Samsung India Software Operations Pvt. Ltd. and ZTE Corp. shared top honors for innovation in mobile consumer products. Samsung was recognized for its part in driving the CDG’s Open Market Handset initiative, launching dual-mode feature phones, EV-DO feature phones and Android smartphones in 2010.
ZTE was honored for its R70 smartphone, which uses the Android operating system, a flagship device for operator China Telecom.
In another tie, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. shared the award for innovation in network technology. A-Lu won the honor for its LightRadio technology, while Huawei won for its SingleRAN solution and the world’s first CDMA-LTE multimode trial for a U.S. carrier.
Huawei also shared the award for innovation in mobile applications with China Telecom Corp. The two companies worked together to provide real-time capabilities to monitor engine status and rail car conditions on high-speed rail cars.
DriveCam Inc. won the award for innovation in smart wireless enterprise devices for its machine-to-machine solution that monitors a vehicle’s G-force. When the device notices an abnormality like a car suddenly stopping or swerving, it triggers an event recorder to capture the audio and video of what is happening inside the car and in front of the car. The technology has been deployed both commercially in fleet vehicles and in the mass market, helping to improve teen-driver safety, the company said.
Tata Teleservices Ltd. won top honors for innovation in smart wireless services for its Mobile hotspot solution.
The CDG also presented the chairman’s award to China Telecom for becoming the first CDMA operator to sell more than 60 million handsets in a year. The world’s largest CDMA operator was also recognized with another chairman’s award for reaching the milestone of 100 million subscribers, a notable feat since the company reached the milestone in three years.