3 ms·
Bandwidth doesn't need to be huge for HFT. If you can send a message saying "there was a big upward movement in the price of instrument X", that's enough to be
by twic 6y ago
Bandwidth doesn't need to be huge for HFT. If you can send a message saying "there was a big upward movement in the price of instrument X", that's enough to be incredibly valuable if it gets to the other end before anyone else knows about it. There might only be a few dozen instruments you're interested in, and a few events for each one, so being able to send a single byte could be enough.
Obviously, more bandwidth is useful, because you can send more details, and make better decisions at the receiving end. But most of the value is in getting a small message there fast.
- jcims 6y agoYeah this is just a narrow wormhole ~8ms into the future. You can pack all sorts of state around it via their existing low-latency fiber...probably just need a few bits over RF to do work.
- erik_seaberg 6y agoI’m reminded of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines#Extremely_low_frequency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines#... where there’s just enough of a channel through the ocean to send a few symbols that mean something prearranged like “make contact ASAP.”