Most people have their vps next to the exchange they are trading in Chicago or New York. See www.speedytradingservers.com www.chartvps.com www.ninjamobiletrader.com
right now, my 'best' ping is 40 ms. when the market is super hot, ping (or whatever it is called) is not measured in milliseconds or seconds. It is measured in minutes or even hours. When the market is super hot, my charting software will freeze for many minutes !!! the record was half an hour! and my trading platforms will also freeze for many minutes!!!
This discussion seems a little futile to me. If you are that latency sensitive, you shouldn't be trading through IB. GAT
I guess it depends what you are trading. For me, from Canada, trading Mkt orders at CME, I'm getting an average of 250 ms round-trip response time (from the time I sent the order from the time I receive the fill). 40 ms of that is the 'real' network latency. So, the simplistic path used should be like this: My bot -> IBGateway (local) IBGateway -> IB server (ndc1.ibllc.com) IB server -> CME server CME trading engine processing and matching my order CME ->server to IB server IB server -> IBGateway IBGateway -> my bot
That is the key metric, isn't it? The fact that your order is processed and filled is the most important bit. What is big deal if it takes extra time for the system to inform you that you are filled on the return trip from the exchange? Yer talking a tenth-of-a-second lag time!