What benefit would you get from knowing? There is most likely more than one IP address that clients connect to with back ups.
Latency for orders that rest on the broker. This is a big deal for people that put stops in common spots(recent support and resistance). The difference in a few milliseconds in execution can translate in many cents in slippage
Internet traffic routing doesn't take a direct path, if you are going to try to reduce latency on the cheap (e.g. not get a direct connection) then in addition to being close geographically you also need to be connected to the same provider that IB peers with. Based on the traceroute that appears to be Alter.net (at least for me, they probably have multiple peering points) which means UUNET which means Verizon so a Verizon business connection in the NYC area is probably the way to go if you want to minimize latency. Code: C:\>tracert 208.245.107.3 Tracing route to gw1.ibllc.com [208.245.107.3] over a maximum of 30 hops: (snip) 13 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms 0.ae1.XL4.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.33.122] 14 17 ms 17 ms 15 ms 0.xe-11-1-1.XL4.NYC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.10.101] 15 16 ms 16 ms 15 ms 0.xe-9-0-0.GW13.NYC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.19.61] 16 22 ms 15 ms 17 ms interactivebrokers-gw.customer.alter.net [157.13 0.249.134] 17 17 ms 15 ms 17 ms gw1.ibllc.com [208.245.107.3] Trace complete.
This is a nice tip for overall order execution. However IB is supposed to have a server in NYC if they want their clients to have better executions. Currently orders resting at IB(Like stops) are too slow due their location
I see, so you are more interested in the latency between IB's servers and some specific exchange servers? Not sure how you could get that information unless IB is willing to provide it (unlikely)
They don't have to provide you can know by the fact the speed is limited(speed of light) and they are not even in the same city, right now all the HFTs and brokers located in NYC are getting executed before IB orders
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but this is a huge deal for stops in important points. Say you are long a stock and its going down to $20 which was previous support. You have a stop at $19.96, when the price breaks $20 usually there is an avalanche of market orders from stops and HFTs gaming those orders. When you have high latency(I mean 'high' in relative terms) you will be guy getting filled at $19.90 or worse more often than not With low latency at last you have a CHANCE of not being gamed so badly by the HFTs, with high latency you are almost guaranteed to get gamed
Ok. Are you surprised that HFT systems are faster than IB's systems considering IB is a retail broker and HFT's have dedicated systems designed with low latency as primary requirement. In other words even if IB's systems had the same network latency as the HFT systems I don't think it would matter, the HFT systems would still be faster. Maybe someone with more knowledge like WinstonTJ can jump in here.