Two industry bodies supporting wireline home networking have merged to create a single organisation that counts more than 70 members, including 28 service providers such as AT&T, BT and Telefónica.

The HomePNA Alliance and HomeGrid Forum are uniting under the name of the latter with the stated mission of promoting the smooth transition of all current generation wireline home networking technologies to G.hn, the ‘any wire’ technology defined by ITU-T open international standards.

The newly-merged organisation will continue to offer support for the installed base of over 40 million certified HomePNA devices in use worldwide, protecting the investment of both HomePNA equipment manufacturers and their customers.

Commenting on the merger, HomePNA president Eran Gureshnik said: “The obvious future direction for all wireline home networking is to migrate to G.hn. Therefore, it made sense for us to merge the HomePNA Alliance with the HomeGrid Forum at this time, providing a clear, strong vision to existing and new customers.”