It was down for me for some time, definately not a minute as stated on their site.. After calling and being put on hold for about 7 minutes was told that it happens once in a blue moon but it seems to be more than that lately. To think that something like that can happen....sheesh.
The problem is not confined to Island. Look at the ISE quotes for IWM, frozen starting just a few minutes after the FED release, and still frozen an hour later, with the result that the SMART ask is frozen at 79.32, even though the market has been trading as high as a full point higher than that frozen SMART ask. These types of frozen quotes frequently during large market moves. IB should exclude such obviously stale quotes from its SMART quote data line, but it doesn't. This problem is only one example of the type of problem which should receive much higher priority than adding new features and products. This is only one example as to why we need to vote for suggestion # 2185 in the IB new features poll.
A few days ago IB screwed up big with no shorts available in a fast market move down. Now, in a fast market move UP, the quotes are crossed for almost an hour! WTF????!!!!!
you better learn the characteristics of a fast market before you dabble in it. recognize and accept those market attributes, otherwise you will have nothing but missed opportunities and repeated frustrations.
The particular problem with frozen quotes, which I described, is not a characteristic of a fast market. It is avoidable and preventable thru quality control.
on IB I had a stop order on AAPL filled 2 minutes after price crossed my stop price, and another stop on QQQQ that i cancelled coz it was just sitting there a minute after price crossed through the stop price, which may be because of the crossed quote i dont know....Although Genesis acknowledged the crossed quotes were streetwide, they fixed the crossed quote problem within minutes but IB did not. In a fast market, its easy to distinguish one platform from another i would say.