4 ms·
The title of the post makes this sound frivolous, but it actually seems like a worthwhile endeavor. 60 ms * the number of packets sent back and forth is signif
by karamazov 15y ago
The title of the post makes this sound frivolous, but it actually seems like a worthwhile endeavor. 60 ms * the number of packets sent back and forth is significant; and, as the article points out, it'll also add redundancy to the cable network between Asia and the rest of the world.
- bradleyland 15y agoAbsolutely. Voice traffic is a big consumer of IP bandwidth these days. The difference between a call made over a link with 170 ms of latency and 230 ms of latency is significant. In conversational terms, the average call participants will start being annoyed at around 300 ms. At 230 ms, any hiccup is going to make the call pretty frustrating. Shaving 30% off that latency buys you some headroom and better general conversational performance. In a greater sense, voice can teach you a lot about the challenges of network various conditions. You can pick and chose a codec to work around a low bitrate, or even high loss rates, but when working with latency, you're stuck. This looks like $1.5 billion well spent.
- egiva 15y agoActually, the plan for this arctic cable is mostly driven by the needs of the financial-services industry in London and Tokyo (i.e. high frequency trading, ultra low latency direct market access, etc).
- ComputerGuru 15y agoYep, because there's big money in that, enough to make people want to invest in a solution.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- yummyfajitas 15y agoI doubt HFT plays a major role. Assets under management are in the neighborhood of $100-200B, profits considerably lower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading
- ghshephard 15y agoI read that in the article as well, but it didn't make a lot of sense. High Frequency Trading (HFT) typically works in the sub 5 millisecond latency space - and it's not unusual to hear about network engineers who work for financial organizations doing HFT trying to shave off 100 microseconds here or there.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- mc32 15y agoI was under the impression that Japan securities firms were a bit behind in the HFT arena (that could just be a misimpression). Or would this be for foreign branches in Tokyo?
- smutticus 15y agoHFT is using colo servers sitting as close as possible to the servers actually handling the transactions. No one serious about doing HFT is even considering switching traffic for more than a few miles if they can avoid it. This cable has nothing to do with HFT.
- obiterdictum 15y agoIf you are trading only one market, no. If you do arbitrage across two or more exchanges, then it matters.
- excuse-me 15y agoI think a more important use of the cable is that it can't `accidentally` be broken by a chinese anchor in the luzon straits.