My initial decision was based on good reviews, but yes I have metrics in my code so I can confirm that I am getting what I am paying for.
The simplified answer: Let's say my strategy has some sort of stop-loss, risk-management functions in it that I am reasonable confident can work. If I run the application on a server that has fairly good connectivity and my 4G wireless drops, at least I can be reasonably confident that I have at least my risk-management logic in place on the server until I either re-establish my 4G connection, or run across the street to a coffee shop or something to reconnect over wifi. After all, the process is running on the remote server and not my home computer. Whereas, if I ran this strategy over my 4G link and my connection drops, I have no chance in hell of the risk management even running because I have no connection whatsoever. So if the market flash crashes while my connection is down, I'm just outright screwed. The real truth of the matter: I have a bunch of crappy little connections, dial-up, 3G, and back-ups for the 4G dropped connection, so there's some element of redundancy in terms of connecting to the remote server. It's just that they are all horribly slow and terrible. It just so happened that when I moved to this place, I didn't realize how bad the internet service options were since I'd always lived in apartments where they at least had cable or something. So until I relocate, my options are limited.
lol! If that's my only option, that's my only option. What can I say, I have worse than third world quality internet and I want to have a journal on ET like "taking $12 to 8billion by year end." A man can dream, can't he?
Thanks for answering the question, clearinghouse. I'm no longer confused. While I have no solutions, I'll just say 6 years ago when I moved to pseudo-rural Idaho, internet access was in the top 3 priorities, right behind water rights and medical availability. (no nearby WiFi cafe's here, so ambulance service is important :eek: ). DSL and a WiFi service were my options 6 years ago. Now I actually have choices... DSL, cable, and 2 different WiFi's services. Now using 5mg cable primary with 1.5mg DSL failover. Never had significant issues. Good connections and trades to you.
For $100/Month I'll plug you into my network... There is a massive difference between colocation and located in close proximity. Colo is plural - assuming you are located in the same place as something else. If you are in a random office or even 3rd party data center from your data provider or from your execution servers you may experience similar latencies within the same zip code that you experience going across 500 miles of land. Do you need to be next to either your data or execution server? Both? Or are you just looking to be in NYC because you think the 25ms ping times are slow? $100/month to plug in a box no questions asked still stands - I'll hold your box as collateral against payment in the event things go south. Rack or free standing tower.
This is an interesting offer. We can discuss over PM, but would care to disclose what sort of solution you opted for? PM is fine for details. I wasn't looking for anything fancy originally. I just didn't want to shell out 1k a month right away for broker colo. My issue is that I -have- to buy a hosting solution, so why not attack the proximity problem at the same time? Whether 25ms is slow enough or not, I won't actually know until I probe what my broker is capable of. I'm still experimenting.