FEATURE
THE GLOBAL INTERNET HAS CHANGED FOREVER AND REQUIRES EXPANDED INFRASTRUCTURE BY STEPHEN GRUBB, HERVE FEVRIER, ANDY PALMER-FELGATE AND MATTHEW MITCHELL
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he global pandemic has changed all of our lives forever, particularly how we use and depend on reliable internet services. The internet was originally architected as a network based purely on best effort practices. However, the internet has now become an essential element in all aspects of our lives. We now rely on it for working at home, online education, connecting to friends and family, telehealth, and online shopping, especially for small businesses, whose livelihood has been threatened during the pandemic. In supporting our 3.51 Billion Facebook monthly users, we have seen our network grow by 50-80%, depending on the specific global region, in 2020. Personal connections to family, friends and community have become more important than ever during these times. Certain Facebook features such as 3-way or greater calling increased by 700% in some countries during the peak of the pandemic. Facebook groups provide a platform for connection with the community and those users with shared interests. In a survey of 15,000 Facebook users in 15 countries, over half belong to 5 or more Facebook groups. Of the survey respondents, 98% feel a sense of belonging and inclusion in these groups. Small businesses have been particularly reliant on online services as their traditional business channels and models have been disrupted. Facebook supports 200 million small businesses globally, has provided training for 100 Million businesses, and is sup-
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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
porting more than 1 million active Facebook shops. But it’s much more than just about increases in network traffic and submarine network capacity. As people rely more and more on the internet for essential services, it also becomes about resilience and reliability of the network and increasing global network reach. Our global network needs to be highly resilient and reliable, and we address this with the combination of a highly meshed optical network and a parallelized 8 plane IP design. We rely on our global submarine cable network for connecting to our 18 data centers, as shown in Figure 2, and expanding the reach to our end users. During the pandemic we have announced
Figure 1: Reliable Internet Services are now essential in all aspects of our lives.
