3 ms·
> for now at least, microwave signals are among the fastest ways to transmit orders between exchanges. I think the author could have asserted this with a littl
by titanomachy 10y ago
> for now at least, microwave signals are among the fastest ways to transmit orders between exchanges.
I think the author could have asserted this with a little more confidence. Short of building a vacuum tube, which would be about 0.03% faster, microwave signal is (and will continue to be) the fastest way we of transmitting information from England to Germany, or from anywhere to anywhere else for that matter.
Although, if anyone is going to completely overhaul our understanding of physics and develop faster-than-light communication it'll probably be high-frequency traders. I think Wall Street already hires more physics PhDs than all the universities in my country combined.
- gballan 10y agoI doubt that the technology choice is so clear cut. I'd guess that the major factors are the group velocity (i.e., the speed of modulation, rather than the speed of a wavefront), the group delay of the analog (roughly 1/bandwidth), and the clock/complexity of the digital stuff (coding and modulation and whatnot). Point-to-point microwave may well be better, but it'd take a while to put a good delay budget together.
- seanp2k2 10y agoSad waste of talent, just like all the people trying to figure out how to get more eyeballs on advertising. Physics people trying to eek out a millisecond or two out of a trading system in order to front-run order books just seems so trite and short-sighted. It's personally very disappointing that we exist in an economy which so highly incentivizes this type of endeavor.
- titanomachy 10y agoI agree, but I think a lot of those physicists would love to work in physics if they could find a job. No one spends 6 years studying neutrino flavours because they want to make tons of money working in finance.