Agree about the jump drive (damn handy devices!). Not knowing the attachment size limit, I'd yesterday tried to send a driver as an email attachment and got it bounced. All this makes me think I should consider getting a Gmail account. Thanks for the good info.
FWIW... Talked to Comcast tech support today... they are finishing up tests to SOON bring 12-32Mps service (currently estimating Q1, '08)... speed varies by location.
FWIW... I traded for years on dialup. Now that I have broadband, I still see ZERO difference in execution speed.
In the bandwidth examples shown there are three numbers - Downlink, Uplink and Ping Time. As pointed out by most responders, downlink speed is important to assure minimum delay in getting market data during an "event." (Fed or what have you). Uplink has little meaning for most trading unless you are submitting S&P 500 basket orders. The ping time number is important as that is the round trip time between you and the test point. For purposes of this board discussion, ping time is independent of transmission speed (UL/DL capacity). In general the ping time of a DSL connection will not change very much over time unless the route between you and the far end server changes. What is missing from the posted numbers is the "packet loss" percentage. The internet was designed to be very robust. When a message is sent, be it a buy order, bid/ask/size, etc., the message is broken up into packets by the internet protocol running on your computer(or the brokers). Each packet is numbered. You send them sequentially, and the far end should receive them sequentially. In the event that there has been a problem on the network and one or more packets is missing, the protocol detects a missing packet and requests that it be resent. Packet loss can occur anywhere along the message path and the receiving router just requests a retransmission from the sending router, not the originating router. This delays the receipt of your message at the far end. In a cable system like Comcast, you are more apt to have "collisions" because you are competing with your neighbors for network access. This increases the need to resend packets between your computer and the network and vice versa. In DSL you are connected directly to the first router. Collisions can also occur all along the transmission path, so the fewer routers, the better. Route selection is beyond our control when using the internet. Leased lines are a different story, in performance and cost. Jack
Thank you.. And thank you everyone who who responded to my questions. I'm going to reread them a few times though out the week but this has already helped out a lot. Hopefully I'll get it right!
To my understanding from other traders to a few techie buddies in the industry this wouldn't make an once of difference. For the most part all your trading software will require on the high side is about 1.5-2.0.. It is the latency and the drops that are the most important. Plus you wouldnt really be getting all that anyway, just a fraction of it.