5 ms·
HFT uses microwaves for anything over distance. Unless this beats microwave latency, this doesn’t do anything for them fwiw
by _2d30 1y ago
HFT uses microwaves for anything over distance. Unless this beats microwave latency, this doesn’t do anything for them fwiw
- rich_sasha 1y agoMicrowave is only feasible over medium distances - can't do it over the ocean, as it requires LoS. Also IIRC, microwave bandwidth is considerably lower than fibre, and sometimes it matters.
- firebird84 1y agoMicrowave is also affected by weather. They sometimes say that markets are slightly less efficient on rainy days. It’s a bit of a joke, but basically packet loss goes way up and they rely more on fiber links when microwave links are being shitty.
- davidmr 1y agoYou still need to traverse physical segments in the wireless path: think receiving dish to the next transmitting dish, the end of the path to get from the trading systems onto the roof and into to the first dish, etc. Every nanosecond counts.
- ac29 1y agoTraders have at least experimented with shortwave too: https://spectrum.ieee.org/wall-street-tries-shortwave-radio-to-make-highfrequency-trades-across-the-atlantic https://spectrum.ieee.org/wall-street-tries-shortwave-radio-...