Latency. Watch the TV news when they are doing a remote interview with someone overseas. It looks like about a 2 second delay before the interviewee responds. This would be one second for the question to reach them and one second for the response to arrive back at the studio. In other words, 1 sec delay on your charts and 1 second delay on your order entry.
>1 sec delay on your charts and 1 second delay >on your order entry. Precisely why if I was forced to do satellite download/charts, I would want a system that uses POTS for the upload. At least I've cut that in half and double my chances at grabbing that elusive liquidity. JB
POTS=Plain old telephone service. Regular voice type lines. Aloha, Jim "Hello, Watson! Come here, I need you."
The only thing two way satalitte is good for is data feed. Upload absolutely sucks, far worse than a phone modem. The phone is sufficient for order entry under certain conditions. I had a lot of problems when I was with brokers whose platform included a lot of data. Now I use sat for my data feed and IB for order entry and I seldom have any problems. Trying to scalp with sat or phone line is inviting disaster, imo.
and noticed a MSN co-operation with a satelite owner. Cost is around $50 a month (plus lease a dish, initial setup cost) Info about it was limited due to the "high school" drop-out kid who was the manager (or clerk). If need further info one could browse the web and or msn. Cheers P.S. I use cable BUT if you live in the sticks for some reason this may not be too bad.
Nicodemus wrote: Precisely why if I was forced to do satellite download/charts, I would want a system that uses POTS for the upload. At least I've cut that in half and double my chances at grabbing that elusive liquidity. Have to agree...this is about the best I've been able to come up with. For the data, the satellite delay is, well, okay. For that up load tho (order entry) the phone line takes the cake. What I've done is just what youdescribed: one computer on a 56k phone line..that is the one I use for order entry (IB, or course). The Gateway uses the dish for the volumes of data I get from Realtick plus the squawk box. If any bad weather moves in, I can terminate the satellite feed and do a dial up on that computer quick as a flash. Okay maybe not *that* fast but within 45 seconds for sure. All the above is why I have two pots lines and three ISP's (if you want to include starband). Each ISP conects to a different backbone. Want more? I have my cel phone programmed to dial IB, just in case all the shi* hits the fan. Some useless knowledge you may or may not want to know: Life would sure be easier if I could do the whole thing using just the dish...and I've tried it several times...but no joy. The satellite latency adds perhaps a second or more before I see the green bar that says my order has hit the NYSE. Using the phone line, it is normally RIGHT NOW! But what really hurts is when the satellite does one of their packet dropouts. You are waiting for that bar to change to the appropriate color and: yup, nothing! That's right, some packets don't make it and I believe the error checking stuff in the software or whereever must ask for another resend and hell, that can take a whole bunch of time. When you're waiting for a confirmation. the wait is torture. Here's the topper: When I do a "ping" to just about anywhere except Starband.net, I get time outs on 50% of the pings! When I ping Starband.net, usually they all go through...at 900 ms or more! I'll tell you guys, I have been seriously considering a burstable T-1 or something along those lines...UUNET says they can hook me up for $1500 and that includes the Cisco router. It is really a turn key type of thing...all I have to do is write monthly checks of about $875 a month for all of this. Verizon is working up a quote for me and I'll have it this week. But all this is such overkill that I can't really justify it from a financial pov. Yet. Regards, Jim
Just to add my 2 cents, I use Tradescape for level 2 and execution. They told me I needed broadband, but being a real low overhead sort of guy I just kept with my reliable ISP dialup account. It seems to work fine. I must admit I have not traded the fastest moving stocks, I'm just starting out. But if you are just starting out, why not keep it simple, avoid trades that could turn bad quickly, and worry about surviving to be here to trade another day.
I couldn't agree with you more. If you're not doing a lot of shares then one, maybe two phone lines would be the ticket. Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck w/ Starband until Feb and after that I just may just take my own medicine...two pots lines and that's it. I guess the point of my very long post is that a satellite service is not going to be what you probably want for trading. Starband, and the other service, want some $600+ up front and a year's contract. My advice: invest in two phone lines and forget the dish. The fishing is great out here in the boonies...tradin is a little harder. Best wishes to all on this board. Today is going to be a little screwy, I'm thinking. Take it in stride and have a gin and tonic when the closing bell rings. Best regards, Jim
I could have got out of the Starband deal before the 30 days was up and only been out the $200 installation fee. I knew by then it would not help me on the upload. Then I would have had to get my second phone back and another isp. That would have been about $50 bucks I would have to put out anyhow. So basically I am paying another $20 a month for the on all the time capability which, combined with the faster downloads makes it worth it to me, so I kept it.