HomeGrid Board to benefit from service provider perspectives with the election of two members with a combination of 50 years’ experience

News Highlights
• AT&T’s Barbara Stark was elected Chair of the HomeGrid Forum Board, with over 25 years’ experience in telecommunications. She also has broad knowledge and experience from serving in other prestigious forums
• BT’s David Thorne elected to Vice President of HomeGrid Forum. David also has 25 years’ telecoms experience, much of which has involved working on technology strategy, including participation in various international standards bodies and industry forums

The HomeGrid Forum has elected a new Chair for the Board and a new vice-president. Barbara Stark, lead member of technical staff in the strategic standards organisation of AT&T will now be the chairman of the board, while BT’s David Thorne has been elected vice president. John Egan continues as president.

With over 25 years’ experience in telecommunications with AT&T, Barbara has a strong reputation for driving consensus and developments and has been involved for many years in a number of standards bodies and forums, including Broadband Forum, UPnP Forum, Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), IETF, National Emergency Number Association (NENA), the Wi-Fi Alliance, HomePNA (on the Board of Directors), and BITAG. In the Broadband Forum she participated in the creation of the acclaimed TR-069 (CPE WAN Management Protocol) and has edited a variety of Broadband Forum Technical Reports (TRs).

Barbara has been a board member of the HomeGrid Forum since June 2013 following the merger of HomeGrid Forum and HomePNA. “I am delighted to be elected as Board Chair at this critical time for both G.hn and HomePNA technologies,” commented Barbara Stark. “We have a big job ahead in the coming year, and I look forward to making key contributions within HomeGrid Forum as we transform the face of the home networking market.”

Barbara Stark is also a listed author and contributor to a number of IETF documents. She has also contributed to UPnP Forum and DLNA documents, and holds several patents. Barbara received a BSEE and BA (German language) from The University of Texas at Austin and a MSEE from Stanford University.

HomeGrid’s new Vice President, David Thorne, is Chief Researcher (Broadband and Access) at BT TSO (Technology, Service and Operations). Dr Thorne has been with BT for 25 years. His current role within BT includes providing consultancy to all BT lines of business regarding Access and Home Networking technologies. His prestigious career has included a range of responsibilities in BT, such as running pioneering developments for structured cabling, the evaluation of business LAN performance and home network technologies, creating many original specifications and establishing BT testing of ADSL modems.

David is an active member of a number of international standards organisations including the Home Gateway Initiative (both as a Board member and technical leader) and the Broadband Forum where he chairs the End to End Architecture Group.

Commenting on his election, David Thorne said: “I am looking forward to sharing my in-depth industry knowledge and offering a really positive contribution to this important role at HomeGrid.”

HomeGrid President John Egan welcomed the election of the two and their ongoing contributions to the Board: “Both Barbara and David take on these roles at a key moment for HomeGrid. Their expertise and knowledge of service providers is something that will bring us significant benefit as we roll out more operator trials and early deployments of G.hn, while also advising us on migration strategies from HomePNA to G.hn.”