5 ms·
I wonder how the Starlink latency compares to the current microwave technologies used by high frequency trading firms. Any slight latency improvement is a game-
by jb775 7y ago
I wonder how the Starlink latency compares to the current microwave technologies used by high frequency trading firms. Any slight latency improvement is a game-changer in the HFT industry.
- JulianMorrison 7y agoIIRC this is how they plan to finance it.
- XJ6 7y agoYou just made that up.
- WillDaSilva 7y agoI doubt that, since I've also heard this claim several times.
- mhh__ 7y agoIf he was lying why would he say IIRC?
- hndamien 7y agoMaybe he just doesn't recall correctly.
- JulianMorrison 7y agoWhy yes I make random shit up about how people plan to finance their low latency satellite constellations allla damn time. Ya got me. It's a fair cop guv.
- manicdee 7y agoI don’t recall SpaceX explicitly stating who they expect their customers to be, but fans quickly dredged up currency and remote stock trading as one potential major source of funding (single customers with huge budgets, rather than hundreds of homes on the cheapest plan)
- Junk_Collector 7y agoThis is a function of the permittivity of the material. A Vacuum is 1, the lowest possible. Air is 1.0006 so you won't see much difference. Fiber optics of various types are usually on the order of 2 to 3 (closer to 2).
- windsurfer 7y agoDistance is still a huge problem. The Starlink signal still needs to travel up to the satellites 500 KM up, and then another 500 KM back down. That should be around 2 ms (thanks user jobseeker990, corrected from previous 15ms) of added latency, so anything that is already below 4 ms of latency probably wouldn't be improved.
- optimiz3 7y agoWould be fine with equivalency - that's a democratizing force. Will also spur more innovation in this area on behalf of HFT firms.
- alextingle 7y agoLight travels 1000km in under 4ms. What else are you adding to that time?
- uoaei 7y agoThat's true in vacuum. Light traveling through a medium has to reflect off of or absorb/re-emit from everything it bumps into, so it goes slower.
- windsurfer 7y agoI have updated my comment above. I was off by about an order of magnitude.
- jobseeker990 7y agoI think your math is way off. I'm getting less than 2 ms to go 500 km.
- windsurfer 7y agoYou're right, thanks. I was off by an order of magnitude. I've updated my comment
- kbenson 7y agoLower latency across the globe is likely irrelevant to people that colocate in the same data centers as the exchanges to reduce latency. Then again, maybe it's useful for arbitrage between different exchanges, where they would likely have equipment next to each exchange, and have a wide distance between them.
- orbifold 7y agoIn case you didn’t know: there are several dedicated microwave links between Chicago and New York just for that reason.