Light Reading's editors are in the middle of judging the 2021 Leading Lights Awards and this is the first in a three-part podcast series discussing the Leading Lights finalists. 

On this podcast, Light Reading's Phil Harvey, Kelsey Ziser and Mike Dano discuss trends they're seeing, what's happening in the awards categories that they're judging and what they've learned from the contest entries as they dig in and prepare to announce this year's winners.

The categories covered in this podcast include:

• Best New Open RAN Product
• Most Innovative Hybrid Networking Strategy
• Most Innovative SD-WAN Product/Service Evolution
• Outstanding Use Case: Service Provider Security (can include SD-WAN)
• Best New 5G Core Product
• Most Innovative 4G/5G Business Service
• Most Innovative 4G/5G Consumer Service
• Outstanding Use Case: Edge Computing
• Best New Optical Networking/IP Product
• Company of the Year (Private)
• The Light Reading Hall of Fame
• Outstanding Optical/IP Networking Components Vendor

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.