Best internet connection for scalping- trying to decide between cable and dsl ?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by nic05, Apr 5, 2008.

  1. BSAM

    BSAM

    Bottom line: If you can trade, either one is good. I've had both. One or the other isn't going to make you a winner or loser (looser for 50% of ETers.):cool:
     
    #21     Apr 6, 2008
  2. Excellent point.

    Given my experience with BOTH over the years, I would disagree.

    Throttled speeds by Comcast?
    Are you kidding?

    As a subscriber to the Blast service that Comcast offers, I would hardly call 16-23mb's on the download "throttled".
    :D

    My upload speed via Comcast averages 3.0 MB's.
    I believe that such an upload speed is more than adequate for efficient scalping/trading.


    Again, you need to do a simple TRACE-ROUTE from your location in Ontario to the IP address of the server that you receive your data-feed from. It's as simple as that, and will give you valuable information to base a decision off of.

    One final point.
    While there are "bottlenecks" that you may not have much control over, you will undoubtedly have to improve your knowledge base when trading REMOTE from home, such as making sure that your hardware is as "bottleneck" free as possible.

    Case in point:

    If you use a router be certain that it is capable of high throughput. You'd be surprised how easy it is to create a "bottleneck" by using a router that doesn't have the capability to manage high throughput speeds. I found the following review ( posted previously by "GTS" ) to be quite helpful:

    http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_chart/Itemid,189/

    :)
     
    #22     Apr 6, 2008
  3. bellman

    bellman

    why do you keep putting bottleneck in quotations?

     
    #23     Apr 6, 2008
  4. No one can tell you unless they have the exact same ISP's for both cable and dsl. We are talking an extra $50 a month. If it's that important, which you say it is, get both and report back.

    Cable is a shared pipe, during RTH I get as much as 8 meg down and 1.5 up. When kids and parents come home, well then it's as slow as 3 down and 1 up. It's Comcast in Denver Metro BTW. It's true DSL is mileage sensitive, but they have relays and repeaters to boost signal over a longer distance. For all intensive purposes DSL is not a shared network like cable so both have their pros and cons. See if fiber to home is available, what do you have to lose?
     
    #24     Apr 6, 2008
  5. nic05

    nic05

    "Bottom line: If you can trade, either one is good. I've had both. One or the other isn't going to make you a winner or loser (looser for 50% of ETers.)"


    Trading isn't an issue, but I know from experience how much harder it is to trade my strategy when the quotes are behind or the fills are delayed. I am not sure if that is an issue with the connection in the office or the data server though.

    So if I do go with the extreme cable package i mentioned before, will i be able to notice a difference between trading on that and trading in an office on a t1 with a bunch of other people?
     
    #25     Apr 6, 2008
  6. rdg

    rdg

    One thing I learned when I started researching how to decrease latency is that my DSL provider uses interleaving on all of its lines. That in itself adds 32ms to my pings. I also found out that my ISP has terrible routes to one of my brokers, and that other ISPs are much better.

    I decided that it really doesn't make any difference given the way I currently trade, so I stopped looking into it. But if I start trading a high frequency system in the future, I'd now be much more willing to pay for a T1 than I ever would have before I did the research.
     
    #26     Apr 7, 2008
  7. That is why I suggested having the OP do a simple trace-route.
     
    #27     Apr 7, 2008
  8. gaj

    gaj

    landis - comcast admitted they slowed down speeds in some areas. that's on record...

    (not doubting you for your area, but they definitely did it in some areas).
     
    #28     Apr 7, 2008
  9. taodr

    taodr

    FWIW I have Rogers cable but business line since office rated commercial address. Eight months ago installed Bell fios as cable was so damn unreliable. kept going down constantly even sometimes whole day. The fios has not gone down once while cable is down few times a month. Not to mention fios is faster. Basically have cable now as backup.
     
    #29     Apr 7, 2008
  10. this may help out the OP. I recently moved from London, UK to Wasaga Beach, Ontario. I trade Eurex, Liffe, CME, CBOT and ICE. I use quad screens, and actively trade about 15 contracts across those markets over a VPN with all my data coming from and returning to my clearer in London, UK.

    I currently trade of 8mg high speed business line from Bell, with no problems at all. However, i am having a house built on the other side of town where i can't get Bell. As a result i have to switch to Rogers Cable. More than happy to do that. The landlady in my rental has a wireless Rogers network installed here, on the 1 occassion my Bell line went down the wireless network kicked in (as i had it set up to do), it kept pace with the market wirelessly for the couple of minutes it took to sort the Bell line.

    In an ideal world i would have both lines to give me the disaster recovery scenerio. Bell business comes in at CAD$100 per month and the cable i am having in comes at CAD$55 per month. But i prefer to put it into the context of how much a line going down might cost me one day if i had no alternative to switch to.
     
    #30     Apr 7, 2008