12/1/2025 Megan Altmyer
ADSL technology earns the IEEE Milestone Award, recognizing its global impact on broadband and ECE alumnus Tom Starr’s leadership in advancing modern internet connectivity.
Written by Megan Altmyer
In September 2025, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) honored ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology with its distinguished IEEE Milestone Award during a ceremony in Antwerp, Belgium. Included in this recognition was ECE alumnus Thomas Starr (BS EE ’75; MS CS ’78; ECE Distinguished Alumni 2011).
As one of the world’s largest professional organizations for electrical and electronics engineers, representing more than 500,000 members globally, IEEE awards milestones to innovations that have delivered significant benefit for humanity for at least twenty-five years.
ADSL first emerged as a laboratory concept in 1990, but its future was uncertain. Many questioned whether it could perform reliably over noisy telephone lines, whether consumers would embrace and use the technology, and whether service providers could adapt to a data-driven era. There were doubts about the feasibility of producing the required high-density semiconductor technology at scale. Through perseverance and innovation, engineers across industry and academia overcame these challenges. Their progress in modulation, coding, equalization, synchronization, network architecture, and data protocols enabled breakthroughs to a multi-megabit broadband service, laying the groundwork for today’s connected world.
ADSL was pivotal in providing affordable and accessible internet to the world. By enabling multi-megabit broadband connections over existing copper telephone lines, ADSL created the first truly scalable link between homes and the emerging digital landscape. The technology ultimately served more than one billion people worldwide.
Among the leaders driving this innovative technology was ECE alumnus Thomas Starr. Starr chaired the U.S. telecommunications standards committee T1E1.4, which produced the first ADSL standard in 1994. He went on to chair the ITU-T WP1/15 committee that published the global ADSL standard in 1998 and consequently helped lead the Broadband Forum in establishing the worldwide certification standard for ADSL equipment in 2000. Beyond his technical leadership, he has co-authored three books on broadband technology and three science-fiction novels.
While the IEEE Milestone Award recognizes a pivotal technology, the success of ADSL reflects the collective work of countless engineers, researchers, and visionaries across the globe. Their contributions transformed ADSL from an ambitious laboratory experiment into a cornerstone of the modern internet era.
Starr attended the celebration in Belgium alongside many of the pioneers who helped shape the technology. “It was an honor to attend the IEEE award presentation in Antwerp, Belgium with other ADSL visionary pioneers,” he said. “Seeing so many colleagues from twenty-five years ago was delightful.”