About - Award Consulting

Award Consulting was founded in 2016 and since then we’ve helped over 100 service providers – from Maine to Alaska and from Canada to Texas – who needed specialist Metaswitch consultants to assist with migrations, troubleshooting and new product offerings. Read more about our services.

Our focus is on providing excellent, hands-on service to our clients. Our engineers are part of your team – who you can contact as needed for questions, troubleshooting or to make configuration changes. As voice engineers, we like talking on the phone – so whenever you want to talk to someone, be assured that we’ll answer (nearly) every call – and promptly call you anytime you ask.

We also have a popular email newsletter where we publish regular articles focused on the needs of independent telcos. Read why people enjoy it, and subscribe here. We have also published over a dozen podcast episodes that you can listen to here.

Our clients are local telcos all across the US – check out the map below showing the approximate locations of our current clients as of May 2025.

“I literally cannot think of a single thing you could do better. You’re prompt, you’re dependable. You guys are a model of everything a contractor should be.”
Shaun Cooper
Executive Director of Network and Technologies, Sacred Wind Communications

Leadership Team

Andrew Ward – CEO

Andrew Ward studied Mathematics & Computation at Oxford University before joining Metaswitch as a software developer. After 3 years writing code Metaswitch realized he was better at talking than coding, and so banished him from London and sent him to work in customer support in Alameda, CA. Andrew discovered that California had much better weather than England, and then he met a girl, so he decided to stay.

Ultimately he spent 14 years at Metaswitch, supporting Metaswitch’s customers across the US and Canada, and was responsible for establishing the Metaswitch Commissioning Team which handled all new customer installations and switch migrations.

By 2015 Andrew was VP Operations but had long harbored a dream to start his own business, and so he gave 3 months notice and left to start something new. His initial experiments with 3D printing were not exactly successful so he started Award Consulting a few months later, and has been focused on growing the business and serving our clients ever since.

“We have been more than pleased working with [Award]. Everyone on our team feels like not only are you providing excellent service, but you are going above and beyond. I cannot think of one improvement that we could ask for.”
Nick Keeling
Network Engineering Manager, LS Networks

Nathan Littlepage – Director of Operations

Nathan has been in the communications industry for over 30 years, including 15 years at Big River Communications, an early-adopter of the Metaswitch softswitch platform back in 2004. At Big River Nathan took leadership roles as an engineer, architect and project manager in the implementation of a nationwide voice and data network.

After leaving Big River, Nathan was Senior Director of Engineering at Smart City Telecom, the exclusive provider of data & telecommunications to Walt Disney World in Florida, before joining Award Consulting in August 2020.

Nathan brings valuable technical expertise in IP and transport networks (alongside his experience with voice switches), plus significant leadership experience in running large voice networks, which will be an asset to our clients.

“As a small provider, we don’t have specialized staff that works on the Metaswitch, so some of the more advanced tasks are difficult for us to do. It’s nice to have someone knowledgeable to help out with the advanced tasks.”
Russ Froemming
Network Operations Manager, Runestone Telecom

Robert Barklay – Senior Sales Director

With over 25 years in the telecommunications industry, Bob Barklay has built a career helping service providers navigate complex technology transitions. He started in carrier sales at Newbridge Networks before taking on leadership roles at Citynet and Metaswitch Networks, where he spent over 15 years driving growth and supporting Tier 2 and 3 service providers across the U.S – including several years working alongside Andrew supporting service providers in the Great Lakes region. Following Metaswitch’s acquisition by Microsoft, he continued leading sales initiatives as part of the Azure for Operators team.

Most recently, he spent 18 months exploring the world of cloud voice with Alianza, before deciding to join forces with Andrew again at Award Consulting. Now, as Senior Sales Director at Award Consulting, Bob leverages his deep industry expertise to connect service providers with the technical solutions they need to thrive.

“Your expertise level in the switching world is second to none. Your staff is prepared and professional. You work diligently to make sure we are taken care of on a timely basis.”
Erick Jaeger
Broadband Operations Manager, Norvado

Whatever your situation, it is our goal to be your trusted partner and advisor. While our engagements are usually built on a technical need, our consultants are excellent communicators who are equally comfortable analyzing a packet capture in Wireshark or talking to an executive about strategy. It’s this rare ability to offer strategic advice – based on a rock-solid understanding of the technical consequences – that sets us apart.

“We greatly appreciate the quick responses, high quality information and availability for hands-on fixes and improvements. Without realizing it, I think we’ve come to think of Award Consulting as something of an extension to our own team.”
Stacy Johnson
Systems Integration Engineer, BEK Communications