Satellite? Does it work well for trading?

Originally posted by Bryan Roberts



Cash, thanks for the info......is this the same with all satellite dish feeds??? are there any differences depending on which vendor one uses????
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I think geosynchonous orbit is 26,000 miles. Then let's add a few thousand miles for triangulation and round up to 30,000 miles. They send the data up to the bird and then it's sent down to you. That's 60,000 miles total. Speed of transmission is 186,000 miles/second. So, 1/3 of a second more right there. If it is bounced a few thousand terran miles (lets say LA to NYC, that would translate into about an additional 24,000 miles (((( 2 * PI * (26,000 geosynch orbit +4,000 radius of earth ) )/ (24,000 circumference of earth))*3000 terran miles). So now you have a total of 84,000 miles still at 186,000 miles per second. So now you're up to nearly half a second.

Then add inefficiencies from the vendor and you're pretty much trapped by the laws of physics no matter who your vendor is. You would get a noticable lag even if the vendor was in the office next door to you.
 
cash,

well you obviously know you stuff!!!!! my head is still spinning from those numbers. i'll definitely have to trust your expertise!!!

Thanks for the info!
 
Originally posted by Bryan Roberts
cash,

well you obviously know you stuff!!!!! my head is still spinning from those numbers. i'll definitely have to trust your expertise!!!

Thanks for the info!
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A lot of that is stuff from grade school geometry and earth science and there's no guarantee of it's authenticity, but you get the idea.

Cash
 
Can you get wireless? In my area its preferred to DSL and Cable by gamers who want to shave a few milliseconds of latency. Don't know why for sure, but is has less lag they tell me. Unfortunately I can't get it at my house due to a tree in my way down the road.
 
I got a client query about using IB's TWS and medium-speed daytrading front-end on a Satellite link.

Having no experience with Sat myself, are there ever issues where TWS simply won't wait long enough for a heartbeat, or whatever, and seizes?

Or does it work reliably, normally, but simply have some latency issues?

Any TWS tuning parameters which are necessary for Sat links at all? Maybe messing with MTU sizes, etc?

Thanks in advance.

FS
 
I've been trading with DirecWay (now HughesNet) for years. But I only trade with automated swing systems (IB API - TWS), so latency problems don't bother me. How it would work with higher frequency trading, I don't know.

I can say that it works "most" of the time. Issues with weather, satellites, and terrestrial servers and gateways make it a very poor choice for someone who has ANY other broadband options IMHO.

And the last few weeks my satellite (G16) has been experiencing slowdowns in the afternoon. Some speculate this is because Hughes keeps loading more and more people on the few transponders. Only so many can use them at one time :(
 
Quote from cashonly:

Depends on your style. Not good for scalpers... you're better off with dial-up and don't try to watch the whole market.

There's an inherent lag in satellite. It's generally 1/2 sec to 3/4 sec each way. That means that if you're trading against someone on DSL/Cable, and you both react as soon as you get a quote, your order will get there than a second behind him.

But if a second is OK, then satellite can give you plenty of bandwidth.
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I beg to differ in opinion: the lag can be as much as 9 - 10 seconds according to my ISP.

However I have a "slow" intraday methodology and have deisgned it so that I can have up to a 4 minute fill period for both entry and exit with no change in results.

When ADSL goes down I dial in, have two backup dial-up ISP's on landline adn two dial-up ISP's on mobile phone: one is slow, the other is high speed (similar to my ADSL speed).

Can trade comfortably with a 33 K modem connection, have tested it with as low as 19K but then start to experience lag at peak times.

Maria
 
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