With “innovation” being a key theme for the entire event, this week’s TIA 2011 also gave a formal nod to some small, innovative telecom startups chosen by a panel of service providers and featured in an innovation showcase sponsored by the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley.

The startups focused on key problems from across the industry, including helping mobile operators to manage the mobile app onslaught to delivering new capabilities to move those same mobile networks to more sophisticated pricing modules.

For instance, Seven Networks is aiming to solve an increasingly pressing problem: alleviating the impact of session-heavy mobile apps on both end-user devices and carrier networks, said Christina, Trampota, Seven’s senior product marketing manager. “Users need help keeping their battery life up and their data usage under control,” she said, noting that carriers have an even greater need to minimize unnecessary sessions on their networks.

The company’s Open Channel platform sits in the network and works with a thin client on end user devices and through caching and intelligent management techniques can reduce network sessions by up to 70%, said Trampota. Seven Networks has worked in the past with device makers like Samsung – helping to power its Social Hub — but came to TIA with a new product and charter targeting mobile operators, she said.

Matrixx Software, meanwhile, is tackling the similarly large-scale problem of helping operators move more real-time policy and rating capabilities out to the edge of their networks, where they are needed to deliver more sophisticated pricing of mobile services, said Jennifer Kyriakakis, founder and vice president of marketing for Matrixx.

According to Kyriakakis, rating systems can usually handle sophisticated rating schemes, but in batch mode; or simple rating scenarios, but more in real-time. What mobile operators need are systems that can implement complex policies and services – like loyalty programs, data top-offs or upsells; and more – but do so in a real-time, transaction-heavy way that prevents carriers from both data leakage and bill shock scenarios that kick off costly revenue assurance processes, she said.

The rest of the Innovation showcase included:

3z, a manufacturer and value added distributor of antenna alignment technologies, specializing in GPS-based alignment tools, and next-generation alignment monitoring sensors.

Aegis Mobility, which develops context-based wireless applications that enable people to manage their mobile communications based on activity, location, time and personal preferences.

appMobi, provider of cloud-based tools and services for supporting large scale mobile app ecosystem and developer communities.

DeveloPeace Labs , which is focused on the design, develop and manufacture free open source end-to-end GSM infrastructure as a platform for profitable cellular services in Africa.

iKnowWare , which has created an mHealth platform delivers medicine reminders, remote data collection, and other medical information by SMS or MMS.

WirelessCraft , which is focused on reducing energy consumption at wireless cell sites, data centers, and other telecom locations.