AT&T has joined the Homegrid Forum as a promoter member and was appointed to the forum’s board of directors. Tom Starr, lead member of the technical staff at AT&T and a telecoms industry expert, will serve as the AT&T representative on the board.
AT&T is the latest in a line of high-profile organisations to collaborate on G.hn, a fully approved and complete wired home networking standard developed by the ITU-T.
The Homegrid Forum brings together global service providers, consumer electronics manufacturers, OEMs, ODMs, chipset vendors and others interested in wired home networking. Other board members include Marvell, Best Buy, BT, Intel, Lantiq, Sigma Designs and Telefonica.
At AT&T Labs, Starr is responsible for the development and standardisation of local access technologies for AT&T’s network. Named one of the 2010 Global Telecoms Business Power 100 most powerful people, he is a well-known telecoms figure who holds several dozen industry patents, is the chair of ITU-T working groups and is chairman of the Broadband Forum.
In addition to Starr, Vernon Reed will serve as an alternate board member. Reed works as a lead member of technical staff of AT&T Labs in Austin, Texas, serving since 2004 as a technical lead in developing and testing AT&T’s all-IP U-verse TV service. He is an authority in end-to-end content delivery using broadband access systems, computing technologies and home network technologies applicable to the IPTV space.
“AT&T U-verse is a strong product offering, and with an always-evolving market, G.hn offers the potential to support and help continue expanding their services,” said Matt Theall, president of the Homegrid Forum.
“We are happy to have AT&T as a voice within our organisation and look forward to their valuable contributions.”
