Anyone have thoughts on using a wireless connection to trade vs wired? Is the speed any noticably better when hard wired? I am designing a new desktop system soon and debating how I should hook it up. Security is not an issue, I know how to lock wireless down if I go that route with a friend that is a computer guy. He says that latency and speeds would be negligible as both methods to connect won't obtain anywhere near their "advertised" speeds but I would like more opinions, independent of it doesn't matter, what's your edge, etc. Purely technical discussion on speeds of the two connections please.
Well, this is not technical. But i can tell you from experience that using wireless to trade is a bit on the wild side. Data lags considerably(at least for me).. Wired is the way to go and I find ethernet wiring much better than usb wiring. i think I read some where that it's because usb wires cannot transmit data as fast as ethernet cables which were designed specifically to do just that.
I often set up wireless for customers, or solve wireless problems but yes, wired is much more robust. However if you have to or really want to use wireless here's the important points for those interested: Netgear, Linksys, Zyxel, Buffalo and Speedtouch are generally good routers, historically I avoid Belkin, D-Link and strange Chinese brands. Avoid latest models, choose tried and tested models, out a year or two at least. Use standard '11g' - avoid MIMO and special high speed connection methods (generally - maybe an ideal pair will work well). Many laptops do have good wireless with low lag. Get rid of nonstandard connection software and use the built in Windows one. Getting rid of Norton/Mcafee and firewalls is also expecially important for reliable wireless - search my other posts for cleanup/speedup instructions. Wireless channel number can be important - you need to be two or three channels away from any nearby neighbours to avoid interference. Channels 3 or 9 are good defaults to use as they are less likely to be used by others. (11, 6 and 1 are very common - in that order). Google and download 'Network Stumbler' utility to find out what channels your neighbours are on. Line of sight and distance are crucial for a strong signal. Glass and wood floors are OK. If you are isolated or don't mind the slight risk, an open unencrypted channel will give slightly better performance, often. If you are in a densely populated area or have a houseful of students next door, forget it. Geeks will exagerate the risk - I don't dispute the facts, but in practice you are more likely to have someone break in than a white van parked outside for hours trying to hack you. Make sure 'always on/connected' or 'nailed up connection' or something similar is selected rather than 'connect on demand', inside the router. Have a network cable ready at the router for instant plug-in, in case you do have a problem. Turn the router off and on at the main power once a day or two.
Since security is not an issue and speed is what you're looking for, all things being equal the difference is negligible for trading if it's swing trading or intermediate term trading. If you're scalping, you'll probably want the piece of mind knowing that a wired connection will not "crap out" if any interference exists in your area like a microwave, cordless phone or a baby monitor. However, all things are NOT equal. The speed depends on what you have on your network. If you have an application that hogs your bandwidth, it doesn't matter if it's wireless or wired. For this instance, you can apply QoS (Quality of Service) rules on your router to prioritize certain traffic in your network. For example, if you want FTP to take priority over other traffic you can instruct your router to handle this. If you want my opinion, go for a Draft-N wireless router with a wireless NIC from the same manufacturer. I've been partial to Linksys since they've been acquired by Cisco (THE experts in networking). Besides the wireless 100+Mbs you'd get with Draft-N, the manufacturer usually applies other algos to boost bandwidth by 4-5X. This should handle bandwidth issues WITHIN your network. You could upgrade to Gig-E but that can be pricy. Anyways, I neglected to mention a VERY IMPORTANT part - your main bottleneck starts from your cable or DSL modem. I'm somewhat "old" but the speed from modem to LAN was Ethernet speeds, i.e. 10Mbs. I don't think that this has changed. In other words, if it's pure internet traffic that you're provisioning for, forget it. All the fancy terminology for 10/100/1000Mbs vs. Wireless A/B/G/N applies on a LAN not on a WAN. So if you want to transfer a 10Gb files from your desktop to your laptop in your LAN, then discussion would be more applicable.
With all due respect, I cannot DISAGREE any more strongly with an open unencrypted channel. It only takes one compromise to make your life hell. A simple compromise would be a neighbor using your open bandwidth to download bittorrent files and say goodbye to your bandwidth and say hello to RIAA. In an ideal world, I would agree with paulxx, but I guess I'm a geek :-D If you can make time, a properly configured personal firewall like Comodo or ZoneAlarm with a WPA2 encrypted wireless network with MAC filtering will get you what you need and protect you from someone cracking your network.
Wireless connections have latency issues. Best way to check is to go to testmyvoip.com. While designed for Voip efficiencies, it also shows your latency issues with your connection. If you want run them side by side to see how your wireless and wired compare. If you are a scalper, etc. this latency can cause you execution problems. Personally, I gave up wireless about 4 yrs ago.
Just to offer one more "geek" opinion to this post. Stay away from Linksys/Cisco. Contrary to popular belief, they are not "kings of networking". Cisco has great marketing and will work for 90% of the population but if reliability is what you need, then stay away. At work, we have problems with our Cisco networking equipment all the time whereas our other off brand stuff works flawlessly from the time we plug it in until we take it offline a few years later. It has gotten to the point that we have had to start "weekly maintainence" scheduled downtime on the Cisco stuff to give it a rest/reboot even when nothing appears wrong or else we will assurably have something die during peak hours. Linksys was a great vendor UNTIL they were purchased by Cisco. Since then, I've had nothing but trouble with linksys routers and unforunately, most of thier netowrk cards work poorly with other routers. I made the switch to a DLink DIR655 on my home network about a year ago now and have never had an issue whereas I had replaced 5 Linksys routers in the year and a half prior. Concerning Wireless. It sounds like your friend who said wireless latency is negligable either knows how you use your network or has never used wireless. Theoreticly, he is correct. THere shouldn't be any noticable difference in latency for wireless vs wired over a short distance like your home. Unfortunately, theory doesn't hold true. I am someone who does online gaming frequently (only relevent becuase latency is huge in gaming and there is usually a display on screen of your current latency) and can say that my computers hooked up wirelessly are always between 10-25ms higher and have noticable lag spikes when compared side by side to my wired computers.
Thanks for the insight everyone. I have a D-Link DGL-4300 router and it is rock solid, no issues. I am going to hard wire my new rig into it and have wireless available for my laptop which I use for other things non-trading related.