You guys need a tutorial in Broadband Service. First off, the news about Comcast trying to "interfere" with certain BitTorrent "Peer-to-Peer" (P2P) file-sharing communications is OLD NEWS! Second of all, Comcast has "reversed" their policy towards file-sharing applications and is no longer interfering (monitoring) with them because they have finally figured out that more info ( about what their user's are doing ) is more valuable. Don't let download speed be the end "all" for some of you, especially if you are getting only 3 mb's per second speed on your broadband connection. The fact of the matter is that doing a simple trace-route back to the IP address of your broker and their data-feed/execution servers will really tell you what's going on . . . The sad part about it is that there is not a whole lot that your broadband provider can do about "congestion" along the Internet Superhighway. For example, if you are on the West Coast and your broker's server is all the way back in NY or NJ, you will most likely hit some "latency" issues with typical Internet congestion in the Midwest. Once you leave your broadband carrier's "local" network ( usually inside the state ) they no longer have any control over the leased access lines that their customers data travels over. For example, I am on the West Coast and use Comcast's "Blast" Service for $52.95 per month. My downloads to San Francisco or Los Angeles are between 21-25 megabytes per second! When I download off of a server in Chicago, I am at 15 mb's per second with an upload of 3.2 mb's per second. All the way back to Washington, DC and I am consistently at a download speed of 11 mb's per second with the same upload numbers, but the download speed does drop off the further away you get. Now, when I conduct a trace-route ( off the DOS prompt on your computer ) using an IP address with a broker back in New Jersey, I average around 92 milliseconds over the last 6 transfer "hops". When I do a trace-route to a broker's server in Omaha, Nebraska, my latency averages only 68 milliseconds, and that is only over the last 3 transfer "hops". Thus, my connection to the server in Omaha is shorter ( not as many "hops" ) AND faster! P.S. For those of you that are using a Router, I would highly suggest that you replace it on a regular basis ( anywhere from 12-18 months ). They do have a tendency to go bad, and some of the older router versions just didn't allow a lot of "throughput" even though broadband providers have increased their speed dramatically over the last year or so. I actually had a Belkin hardwired 4-port router that was "capping" me at 7.4 mb's on the download even though my Comcast service was allowing me speeds that were 2-3 times faster! The current Belkin router has the exact same model number, but they are on the 4th version, and I had the 1st version. Even though I kept things current with the latest "Firmware" downloads off the Belkin website, it didn't matter . . . the Router was "capped". I switched to an AirLink that was favorably reviewed and I have been realizing the wonderful potential of the Comcast "Blast" service ever since. As for the wiring of your Comcast cable at home, there can be a lot of things to look for that will hurt your signal to noise ratio, which then contributes to disconnects. One of the biggest problems will be the use of splitters. Every time you split the cable ( like off to a tv or to another computer ) you are cutting the strength of the broadband signal. In most cases, this can be alleviated by having a Comcast tech come to your home and replace some cable fittings, or install some of Comcast's own (higher quality) splitters, or even install a small "amplifier". ( which is what I had done ). The tech will use a laptop with various "test and measurement" software to see how strong your signal is, and where in your home you might be losing some of the signal strength. I had this done, and it has worked extremely well! Hope this helps.
Thanks Landis: So does the 3 or 5 megabits speed only pertain to getting our stock orders to our ISP's "local network" and the speed at which the data will come to our screen once the data has come from the broker to the "local network" of whatever ISP we select?
(Sorry for the late response - just saw your post.) With my style of trading I don't need to measure the speed of my connection in milliseconds. So whether or not I have the absolute fastest connection is not important to me. What is important is rock solid consistency, and on that criteria my personal experience is that DSL wins hands down. I simply cannot have connection outages, which Comcast occasional does. Of course, your requirements may be different. Hope that helps.
No. You can test your "upload" and "download" speed to various servers across the country via a broadband speed test like the one found here: www.speedtest.com and http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ I just tested with Speakeasy ( above ) during the middle of the market day and received 14.9 MB's per second on my download and 3.00 MB's per second on my upload from California back to NYC, using Comcast "Blast" Service for $52.95 per month.