What is the fastest internet connection you can get in the home in chicago? Also, if the answer is "not very fast" does anyone know of shops in town that lease out space for someone to trade on their own or as a customer?
You don't need a fast link "at home". Get a fast link by renting a virtual server somewhere. (ThePlanet, SoftLayer, etc.) You'll get the best networking equipment money can buy, redundancy up the wazoo, etc, etc.
In that case, would you remote into the server and trade off the server? Being in Chicago, might be better to just get Comcast, and make sure you use a local broker who has a direct connection to Globex. Btw, I have servers with Softlayer; solid company but I don't see the benefit of trading off servers located in Texas
Yes, remote into the server and trade off the server. That's what I use right now, and the redundancy is (IMO) priceless. I know people trying to make it work at home... get two DSL lines... but all you need is a transformer fire at the wrong place, and you're toast. Or, for that matter, your neighbor has bad aim with a weed-whacker and cuts your phone line. Even if an earthquake struck my house right now, I would (most likely) be okay (with the trading at least). I have ATT wireless broadband; not fast enough for subscribing to 200 signals in real time, but more than fast enough to RDC into my Softlayer server. And on the off chance of hardware failure, someone on-site can most likely get the power supply/hard-drive replace and help me get up and going within 60 minutes. Or, they can just provision me onto a new server... and I'll be up in 30 minutes. As far as location being in Texas vs Chicago... well, I *had* been using TDA, which is (I think literally) next door to Softlayer. But anyways, the extra 50ms really doesn't make a difference for most of us... certainly not for someone trading from home.
Heech, Im really interested in your setup. Seriously though what kind of speed are we talking if we go the RDC to Server compared to the Cable Broadband? Have you had the catch to run a speedteser on it? And whats the round about on price? D
I don't really know what tools/tests to run. If you have suggestions for me, I'd be happy to try'em out. I'm using Barchart (for data) and IB/TWS/NT. I should just remember to netstat to see what addresses I'm connecting to...
Tests to run, http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ My Cable Broadband (I ran 3 back to back tests) Averages 24.3Mbps Download//2.8 Mbps Upload in the Early NY trading session but After lunch, I average only 10.1 Down//1.9 Up. AND ping www.yahoo.com from your CMD and notice the trip times in ms. 22ms-25 ms on my end here
Not sure these are really apple/apple comparisons... This depends on the server you select. I have two different servers with Softlayer (as physical redundancy)... one in Dallas and one in Seattle. (So if Dallas falls into the ocean, I can trade with the Seattle machine.) From my Seattle machine to the Speakeasy server in Seattle, I actually have "infinity kbps" download (seriously, that's what it says), and 6415 kbps upload. Going cross-country from Seattle machine to New York, I ended up with 2134 kbps down, 4675 kbps up. Also keep in mind that Softlayer gives you different levels of network bandwidth depends on the package you want. I'm not tied into the Gigabit link, because it hasn't been useful so far. Services like Softlayer's used to host major e-commerce sites... so to put it mildly, they invest in network pipes. This is completely, completely dependent on the location of where you're pinging, because the speed of light is the restrictive factor. I originally picked a server in Dallas because I was working with TD Ameritrade. I actually have 1-2ms ping times to the TDA servers. But now I'm on IB, which is located in Boston, and my ping times are up to 55 ms. I might want to relocate to their Washington DC server farm, where my ping times will probably drop to 10-20ms time.
Thanks (I know not the most scientific but it's the best test Ive found free online.) I always run from the closest server. And yes 6.m Up is really fast.