Starr, Thomas

2011 Distinguished Alumni Award

For exceptional vision, leadership, and numerous technical contributions enabling the creation of ubiquitous broadband network access.

Thomas J. J. Starr serves as a Lead Member of Technical Staff at AT&T in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. He is responsible for the development and standardization of broadband access and home networking technologies for AT&T’s network. These technologies include ADSL, HDSL, SHDSL, VDSL, and G.hn. In 2009, Tom received the prestigious AT&T Science and Technology Medal for broadband industry standards leadership.

He serves as Chairman of the Broadband Forum, a telecommunication industry association of 200 companies worldwide, and has also served as a member of the board of directors from its inception as the ADSL Forum in 1994. Tom is also a distinguished fellow of the Broadband Forum. From 1988 to 2011, he has served as chairperson of ANSI accredited standards working group T1E1.4, and received the Committee T1 Outstanding Leadership Award in 2001. In the ITU-T SG15, a United Nations chartered technical committee, Tom serves as Chairman of Working Party 1, addressing fiber, DSL, and home networking standards. Tom participates in the ITU SG15 Q4 group on DSL international standards.

In 2010, Tom was named to Global Telecoms Business’ list of the one hundred most powerful persons in telecommunications. In 2011, he was elected to the HomeGrid Forum’s board of directors, where home networking technology is developed. He is a co-author of two books on DSL technology. Tom holds 20 US patents in the field of telecommunications.