Tell us how you rate IB's connection/HK

[Steve_IB]

Quote from mokwit:

I am having multiple disconnects that is making trading near impossible.

As mentioned in another thread my connection is very poor at present but TWS overall is just too sensitive for the reality of the internet. If it was just me and my connection I would say OK, but I see similar issues reported from US and W Europe (i.e not rural Romania).

I suspect it is the usual developer practice of writing code that works fine on the laboratory conditions of their corporate LAN but don't get it that the real world of the internet is not like that. How many IB clients connect via a T1/T3 line, whic is basically what the developers are assuming.

There are a number of issues that i do NOT believe my ISP plays a part in. Also reported by others in multiple locations and as yet unfixed.

I strongly suspect it is your ISP. Do you ping and traceroute when you lose connection to us?

I've been in Singapore this week, and I had clients experiencing problems with TWS on Monday and Tuesday. After screaming at "IB reliability", I checked that everything was okay with our servers and thus, asked them to call their ISP provider. Their ISP insisted that everything was okay on their end - so I received more screaming.

As I was in the country I was able to test everything myself, including alternate ISP's. It was only when the ISP was confonted with the fact that their competitors connection was fine, did they actually look at the problem seriously. An hour or so later, they came back saying that it was a problem with their US server and it would be fixed tommorrow.

As you're in Thailand I suggest you try different ISP's - and check how they actually route to HK or the US. I've seen Australian ISP's route to HK via the US! Many ISP's also share pipes, so your back-up ISP may not actually be a back-up at all.

TWS is not set-up to work solely on T1. While I was in Singapore I was using a GPRS network card without any issues (best to use the IB standalone version if taking this route). I also use a 3G card for giving demo's in HK when I can't get a wireless connection.
Hope that helps.

 

[Holmes]

Most of the problems that I experience is with Telecom New Zealand doing "maintenance" and downing a server. This leads to lost connectivity (confirmed by tracert). I then dial in through another service provider that is not utilising Telecom's broadband network and everything is fine. Connectivity was better to Hong Kong than to the US during all the years that I have been with IB (and I am certain this this due to Telecom). So no worries on that front.

I never managed to get SSL to work through HK. (Account is in the US). Because I was missing the end of the US session I switched recently back to the US .

I changed my trading style to using a longer timeframe. Less dependency on uptime and subsecond response times. This helped to improve the results.

Sherlock

 

[mokwit]

Steve, Singapore has some of the best internet infrastructure in the world, better than many parts of US or EUR I would suspect. If TWS is having issues in SG (or AUS) then that just proves my point that TWS is written for too high a spec for the reality of the Internet in many countries.

Changing ISP is not always an option for many of us due to coverage and the fact that many pull the same routing stunts etc as you describe or go through the same international gateway.

 

[dcraig]

Quote from mokwit:

Steve, Singapore has some of the best internet infrastructure in the world, better than many parts of US or EUR I would suspect. If TWS is having issues in SG (or AUS) then that just proves my point that TWS is written for too high a spec for the reality of the Internet in many countries.

Changing ISP is not always an option for many of us due to coverage and the fact that many pull the same routing stunts etc as you describe or go through the same international gateway.

I think you're well off base here. Management of poor TCP connections is handled by the TCP/IP protocol stack in the operating system. An application program such as TWS written in Java, C or anything else has very little control over this. Really all the application has to do is make new connection if the operating system tells it that a current connection is closed. It might also use a supervisory timer or heartbeat to check the heath of a connection.

So it is not really possible to code TWS for good or poor TCP connections.

The TCP protocol handles retransmission of packets with bit errors, resequencing of out of order packets etc. This is controlled by a number of system parameters that are mostly inaccessible to an application such as TWS. I believe on Windows they are in the registry. On Linux in entries in the /proc file system. There is a small chance that they may be tunable to better handle poor connections, but in general they should be left well alone.

The bottom line is that if the ISP or it's peer(s) are providing a poor service then TWS or any other application can't really do much about it.

 

[mokwit]

I think you will find that TWS is set to disconnect on packet loss. Other apps such as e.g one charting package are set to disconnect on a time period without data - in one case 200Ms which can be a frequent pause on some ISP's (this is within the control of the ISP because they que packest to maintain bandwidth thresholds). It is also the time it takes to cross the Atlantic so bad luck if you are in Europe.

In other words as I stated previously their parameters are too sensitive for the real world beyond their corporate LAN*.

* I acknowledge that this is a very grey are when actual order transmission is involved as there are potential complications that could lead to resubmission of same order etc and I gather on this part IB is actually quite robust and performs well. Considering the problems I have with disconnects I have very few problems with actual orders other than already placed resting stops and Market orders.

 

[def]

Quote from mokwit:

I think you will find that TWS is set to disconnect on packet loss. Other apps such as e.g one charting package are set to disconnect on a time period without data - in one case 200Ms which can be a frequent pause on some ISP's (this is within the control of the ISP because they que packest to maintain bandwidth thresholds). It is also the time it takes to cross the Atlantic so bad luck if you are in Europe.

In other words as I stated previously their parameters are too sensitive for the real world beyond their corporate LAN*.

* I acknowledge that this is a very grey are when actual order transmission is involved as there are potential complications that could lead to resubmission of same order etc and I gather on this part IB is actually quite robust and performs well. Considering the problems I have with disconnects I have very few problems with actual orders other than already placed resting stops and Market orders.

mokwit,
read steve's post carefully. I'll restate since I just spoke with him. The client's only had problems the previous two days. The client's with the problems were ALL using the same ISP. those using a different vendor were not having problems. After calling the ISP, they first denied that they had a problem. Upon insisting they look into things further, they isolated a problem and resolved it.

Your claims that we drop off client connections upon packet loss too quickly is not the case for the vast majority of our clients who have reliable ISP conenctions. The risks of not receiving a trade confirmation or an order being placed are too great to ignore.

steve46, where are you located? How are the overall ISP's speed and reliability?

 

[mokwit]

Thanks, there is nothing wrong with my English comprehension.

Not all ISP's are as amenable to suggestions and willing to do something about them. The ISP with the error is probably more representative of the reality of the internet for many clients than the error free SG ISP except they don't do anything when e.g. you point out they they are overloading a router.

I have experienced similar issues in London, but was able to resolve it by switching ISP's. This option is not always available, or a solution, due to shared architecture.

Thailand is an extreme example but the engineers the telco sent round knew less than I did. I have heard similar stories from posters in other countries.

As discussed in another post I acknowledge thatb there is no easy answer on the tradeoff between order integrity and connection reliability. Also I do not get these problems with other platforms data vendors unless there is an obvious disruption that affects everything.

Again, I acknowledge there are issues with my ISP/Gateway and if it was JUST me who had these problems I would say OK there has to be a cutoff somehwehere but I have seen the same issues reported here from people in US and EU.

 

[kiwi_trader]

Steve,

I'm not seeing problems (once in the last few months) but I do note that when I look at the route there are a lot of packets being dropped at the HK end in the ATT network that your attached to in HK.

This seems surprising to me.

 

[kiwi_trader]

The other half is this comparison using a tool called FREEping. I will run it overnight (60secs between pings) and tomorrow during the trading session.

<img src="http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=801093"/>

 

[Holmes]

Quote from kiwi_trader:

Steve,

I'm not seeing problems (once in the last few months) but I do note that when I look at the route there are a lot of packets being dropped at the HK end in the ATT network that your attached to in HK.

This seems surprising to me.

Kiwi Trader,

Noticed that you have 19 "hops". In the past it was said that anything over 17 starts to become of dubious reliability. A previous ISP of mine had around 23 "hops" and I suffered a lot of dropouts. So I changed ISP.

Sherlock