I am considering faster speeds mainly for VOIP (Voice Over IP) reasons. I currently have 7 computers in my house all connected to the internet. One of which maintains a permanent VPN connection while another runs my personal email/web server. So I already consume quite a bit of bandwidth. I have been considering a VOIP phone line for my daughter but I am worried that may chew up too much bandwidth when she is on the phone. Since I am not an intra-day scalper (I trade options) I am not too worried about small delays in data. I do have UPS's on my machines (as well as modem and routers) for power outages and such. As far as fail over goes since I am not day trading I just use my cell phone to monitor and manage trades should my connection go down. I use a T-Mobile Wing with the ToS Windows Mobile platform installed. I like the cell phone solution because it also allows me to monitor and manage trades while away from home. How much bandwidth does a day trader really need? I'd say 6Mbps - 10Mbps is fine for most applications. Live feed data really isn't a lot, it's just numbers less than a byte each. Bandwidth really should not be an issue unless you are running your platform on probably more than 6 computers, watching data for 50 or more equities. Although I am not sure how one can watch and try to scalp anywhere near that many. Latency (aka ping times) should the main concern of the day trader. It doesn't matter if you have 10000 Mbps if your ping time is too high your data is going to be delayed more than is probably acceptable. It would be awesome if platform developers would build in a latency meter so you could always see how fast your connection to your brokers servers really is.
FWIW I used to use skype all day while day trading. A safe estimate would be 120kb for the VOIP, probably less since Comcast is IMO more advanced than skype.
Dan, Given that your ping to your broker that you trade the E-minis off of is only 60ms, I'd say that you are in excellent shape. For me, "trace-routes" are just as, if not more important than one's download speed. The basic Comcast broadband package offers up to 15 Mpbs on the download for $42.95 per month. I pay $53.00 per month for the Comcast "Blast" Service. Comcast claims downloads up to 20Mbps and uploads up to 4Mbps at this monthly rate. For another $10.00 per month you can get up to 30Mbps on the DL and 7Mbps on the UL. "Extreme 50" offers up to 50Mbps on the DL and 10Mbps on the UL. $99.95 in my area. PS. I am told that the new DOCSIS 3.0 modems that Comcast uses offers a higher bandwidth given that it supports VoIP. NOTE:And yes, always make sure that you are on top of your Router. They are literally "throw-away" items after a couple of years and should be replaced. I had a Belkin model that was actually "capping" my bandwidth at 7Mbps even though my Comcast plan was offering me 15Mbps at the time. It was the same EXACT model that was currently being offered on the market, except it was 4 years old. Turns out there were several "newer" versions that had come out AFTER mine over the years, even though they ALL shared the same model number.
Thanks Lanids. My router is 7 years old :eek: But I have upgraded firmware. It was fine until a couple of weeks ago. Its gets "flakey" twice a week and needs a reset. I did test it a number of times by bypassing and the test were the same. I haven't been trading due to some more important family issues so it's not a big deal, but does need addressing. And yes I absolutely agree that latency is more important than download speed. That's the reason for questioning the mass bandwidth.
Do yourself a favor and BUY a new Router ASAP! I upgraded my firmware too, but it didn't make any difference because the micro-processor in it was "capped" at a 7MB download speed.
I don't know how accurate Speedtest.net is, but there are HUGE differences between browsers and OSs: Chrome: Opera: Firefox with Adblocker: On my laptop Linux made each browser faster by 30% or more....
I am planning on it. My Lynksis is capped at 10 mg and that's all I can get with my current service agreement. Heck I only pay for 6 mg down and get 10 mg with power boost so I am happy for now. FWIW if someone is looking for good single wan router this reviewed well http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=371. I may get that or just stick with slower speeds get DSL for redundancy and get the dual wan router for $220 ish with lower throughput since I don't need that much bandwidth.
Yes, I noticed that too. Hard to decide whom to trust. Strictly speaking internet speed varies all the time, depends on the time of the day, the distance of the server, number of users, etc. I agree with the poster above that ping is more important than bandwidth...