
Networking & Connectivity
Data networks that support the social network
Underlying our applications are networks at scale – and bringing more people online to a faster internet.
Networking is fundamental to the large-scale, distributed systems that power the family of Facebook applications that are used by billions of people. Our Networking researchers focus on making innovative and scalable networking technology by rethinking traditional approaches and designs and collaborating with research and open source communities to develop an ecosystem of open hardware and software. We have developed and shared the details of numerous networking systems. This also includes applications of related disciplines such as machine learning, optimization and algorithmic theory, and formal verification to the networking domain.
Beyond our own infrastructure, Connectivity researchers at Facebook explore new wide area communication models and technologies in multiple domains, including lasers, terrestrial links, wireless networks and high-altitude platforms. Our experts aim to overcome technical challenges, invent new solutions and drastically change the economics of deploying wide-scale internet infrastructure. We work with researchers at universities, government labs and industry to quickly advance these new technologies to become viable solutions for operators and other partners to deploy. For our non-research activities, see the Facebook Connectivity website.
Our People
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Ted Woodward
Research Manager
Networking & Connectivity

William Farr
Principal Research Scientist
Networking & Connectivity

Julius Kusuma
Research Scientist
Data Science, Networking & Connectivity, Systems & Infrastructure

Ying Zhang
Software Engineering Manager
Networking & Connectivity, Systems & Infrastructure

James Hongyi Zeng
Engineering Manager & Research Scientist
Networking & Connectivity, Systems & Infrastructure

Yael Maguire
VP, Engineering
Networking & Connectivity, Systems & Infrastructure
Latest Publications
All PublicationsarXiv - December 3, 2020
SuperCell: A Wide-Area Coverage Solution Using High-Gain, High-Order Sectorized Antennas on Tall Towers
Pratheep Bondalapati, Abhishek Tiwari, Mustafa Emin Sahin, Qi Tang, Srishti Saraswat, Vishvas Suryakumar, Ali Yazdan Panah, Julius Kusuma, Amit Dubey
ACM IMC - October 28, 2020
Towards A User-Level Understanding of IPv6 Behavior
Frank Li, David Freeman
ACM IMC - October 27, 2020
How the Internet reacted to Covid-19 – A perspective from Facebook’s Edge Network
Timm Böttger, Ghida Ibrahim, Ben Vallis
ACM SIGCOMM - October 26, 2020
Zero Downtime Release: Disruption-free Load Balancing of a Multi-Billion User Website
Usama Naseer, Luca Niccolini, Udip Pant, Alan Frindell, Ranjeeth Dasineni, Theophilus A. Benson
Latest News
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November 19, 2020
The economic impact of subsea cables in Africa
Engineering blog
Videos
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Expanding Network Coverage in Abeokuta and Benin City with MainOne
3:20 | August 6, 2019

Improving Network Speeds In Uganda with AirTel and BCS
2:53 | August 6, 2019

Partnering with VAST to Improve Internet Access for South African Townships
2:19 | August 6, 2019

Expanding Broadband Connectivity in Rural Peru with Internet Para Todos
2:48 | August 6, 2019