Adding more fuel to Facebook’s wireless broadband access ambitions, Kevin Lo, late of Google Fiber, is joining Facebook as director of infrastructure connectivity and investments.
Lo expanded on his new role in this post on Facebook. “I’ll help shape our strategy and investments with partners to build wireless technologies and ecosystems that improve global connectivity,” he noted. “Facebook has worked hard over the last decade to make the world more open and connected -- from partner oriented initiatives like OCP and TIP, to new wireless connectivity technologies and long haul fiber optic cables. I’m thrilled about the opportunity to work with like-minded colleagues in leveraging Facebook’s open and collaborative approach to innovation.
Lo will report to Jason Taylor, Facebook’s vice president for infrastructure, according to Recode, which first reported on Lo’s move last Friday (June 24).
Lo is joining Facebook, as the social media giant and VR company continues to invest in wireless broadband technologies and platforms. In April, Facebook announced that its Connectivity Lab was moving ahead with a plan to use millimeter wave technology to drive wireless broadband services to dense urban areas. That effort includes Terragraph, a 60-GHz, multi-node system that will use radios that are based on WiGig, an enhancement to the WiFi standard for in-room, high-bandwidth communications. Facebook is working with the city of San Jose to launch a test in late 2016.
Before heading to Facebook, Lo was GM of Google Fiber, joining the division in 2010 (former Qualcomm exec Dennis Kish has been leading Google Fiber's business team since the fall of 2014). Lo is also late of M2Z Networks, a wireless telecom service provider that has since closed, Endo-Capital, NaviSite (acquired by Time Warner Cable in 2011), and Bain & Company.
