Industry awards honour past Optus chief

Hutchison Telecommunications and Personal Broadband Australia (PBA) were also recognised during the 2004 Telecommunications Achievement Awards as "providing leadership in innovation". The awards were presented by the Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Senator Helen Coonan.

Chairman of SPAN, John Kranenburg, described the awards as an opportunity to applaud those "whose work provides the impetus for continuing improvements to the industry's well-being and reputation across the wider community".

According to SPAN, Hutchison was named as a leader in providing innovation due to its launch of "Australia's first third-generation network" in 2003, while PBA was titled with the same decoration due to its "introduction of new wireless broadband access services".

Primus Telecom was presented with an award for "providing leadership in industry competition", which, the group said, was granted by recognition of the telco's peers as having "done the most during the past year to advance the competition regime in relation to wholesale access to infrastructure services".

iiNet was one two recipients for the "providing leadership in industry growth" award, which Span said was in recognition of "iiNet's progression from a hobbyist operation in a suburban garage to one of the major Internet Services Providers in Australia".

The other winner was Pacific Internet honoured for its efforts in carving out a "significant niche market within the business community by offering a range of advanced access and value-added services for the business community".