HomeGrid Forum announced that AT&T joined the
organization as a Promoter Member and was appointed to the HomeGrid Forum board
of directors.

 

Tom Starr, lead member of the Technical Staff at AT&T
and a telecom industry expert, will serve as the AT&T representative on the
board.

 

AT&T U-verseR 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 HomeGrid
Forum.

 

AT&T is the
latest in a line of high-profile, industry-leading organizations to collaborate
on G.hn, a fully approved and complete wired home networking standard developed
by the ITU-T. HomeGrid Forum brings
together leading global service providers, consumer electronics manufacturers,
OEM/ODMs, chipset vendors, and others interested in wired home networking who
want to offer the best solution for their customers.

 

Other board members include Marvell, Best Buy, BT, Intel,
Lantiq, Sigma Designs, and Telefonica.

 

As a lead member of the technical staff at AT&T Labs,
Starr is responsible for the development and standardization of new 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 telecom
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 a recognized
authority in end-to-end content delivery using broadband access systems,
computing technologies, and home network technologies applicable to the IPTV
space.