My guess is that what we are really seeing here is hardball negotiating tactics by IB directed at ICE.
Probably they are trying to generate enough ICE subscription cancellations (by quoting a high price publicly to users) that ICE will come around and give them a better deal.
This area, data subscriptions, seems to be an extremely strange one, with some brokers such as Tradestation charging $75 a month for each exchange accessed, including separate levies for each of CME, CBT, NYMEX etc even despite common ownership, while some other brokers, probably best not named, are charging nothing for any subscriptions.
Probably all sorts of brinkmanship and gaming is going on behind the scenes with respect to these quote fee issues, among multiple parties, with some brokers systematically underpaying the fees by using innovative methods of counting users etc. and defying the exchanges to audit them and cut them off.
So probably IB cannot really explain what is going on publicly without hurting its bargaining power.
I would suggest waiting a while to give this time to play out, at least until someone is actually charged more than they expected.
Probably they are trying to generate enough ICE subscription cancellations (by quoting a high price publicly to users) that ICE will come around and give them a better deal.
This area, data subscriptions, seems to be an extremely strange one, with some brokers such as Tradestation charging $75 a month for each exchange accessed, including separate levies for each of CME, CBT, NYMEX etc even despite common ownership, while some other brokers, probably best not named, are charging nothing for any subscriptions.
Probably all sorts of brinkmanship and gaming is going on behind the scenes with respect to these quote fee issues, among multiple parties, with some brokers systematically underpaying the fees by using innovative methods of counting users etc. and defying the exchanges to audit them and cut them off.
So probably IB cannot really explain what is going on publicly without hurting its bargaining power.
I would suggest waiting a while to give this time to play out, at least until someone is actually charged more than they expected.