What service you use to connect to the Internet?

Quote from Bolimomo:

It is not a measure of how many trades you place in a day.

What matter is whether the network speed is adequate for your trading application. I would imagine that it would involve getting price data streamed down to your desktop/laptop to display some kind of price charts for you to trade. But how many charts you look at, what kind of periodicity (e.g. daily chart versus 10-tick chart), and how many computers may be sharing the same network bandwidth at your home/office? This varies a lot from trader to trader. There is nothing "typical" about it.

You just need to make sure that the network bandwidth you have paid for addresses what you need. And some of us have planned for sudden surge in network traffic because of chaotic market conditions and have built-in some buffer. Like why did they construct such a big open water channel in Los Angeles? That place seemed never rain. But when it does rain, you can appreciate the thoughts of the engineers.
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Well I'm not as knowledgeable about all this stuff as I want to be, so I'm probably asking dumb questions.

I just have a normal home computer all by itself with Verizon DSL. What would happen on an extremely busy day if I had my computer & you had your computer (which I'm sure is way better than what I have)? I've been watching charts on it for about 5 years now, & I've never really noticed anything negative..........maybe just something minor once or twice.

I usually just have CL-Oil open with 6 charts (smallest timeframe 1 minute & 1000 volume).
 
To put it simply...

In Windows:

Right Click Task Bar->(Start) Task Manager->Networking

After hours run a speed test to determine your maximum rate.

During trading hours monitor how much bandwidth your machine is using while your data feed is connected and instruments selected. Most likely if it is minimal AND no other machines/devices are streaming video/audio/data from the internet then you are good to go.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

Anyone else have experience with Clearwire? I like the idea of not having tohave an installation with people drilling holes in my house, plus there are a lot of trees in my neighborhood and they fall down in storms, disrupting service.
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I have Time Warner as my primary internet connection. I've been using a Sprint aircard with my laptop as back-up in case my internet goes down. I guess I've used that for 3 years or so.

Recently though, I cancelled the aircard, and changed my phone to a 4G phone that I can use as a mobile hotspot. Again, this is thru Sprint, not exactly sure if it is intertwined with Clearwire on this service. The cost of this "mobile hotspot" is about $35 per month if memory serves. It is 4G in some areas, 3G in others. I like this setup alot. I set up the mobile hotspot on the cellphone. Then I connect wirelessly with my laptop. I traded the other day with no problem, ran charts, order entry software, etc. BTW, there is no limit on the mobile hotspot like there was with the aircard.

I use this as a backup. The reason I used it the other day is that I had some trouble with my cable. I was on my laptop the rest of the day via the mobile hotspot.

I pay the regular cell phone charge with sprint, then the 4G mobile hotspot is an extra $35. You can connect from anywhere that Sprint is. You can run 5 devices off the mobile hotspot. So far though I've only done one...my laptop.

The one disadvantage I've discoverred so far is that you can't use your phone while it's being used as a mobile hotspot, or it disconnects your internet. As soon as you hang up, it connects again. LOL! Ask me how I know this.

OldTrader
 
Primary Line is a dedicated 10Mbps fiber optic line - never drops speed ultra fast for downloading even up to 20 charts in a blink

and back is rated 8Mbps copper line that's part of the phone deal but drops speed quite often down to 3Meg - sometimes its useless takes forever to download multiple chart symbols

Mobile 3G card @ 1Mbps when I'm out and about on laptop
 
The most bandwidth I've ever seen a single trader/group pull was 35mbps sustained and that was during May 6th Flash Crash.

Was a group of 4 traders with total of 9 boxes on a 100-meg circuit. 35-megs sustained, burst was up to 42. Upload was 17megs (which is insane high for trading outfit).

In my experience, the average manual trader pulls about 1.5-4megs down (average/sustained) and can burst up to 7megs download speed (not counting multiple youtube sessions). They max upload of about 2megs and usually hover around 500k-750k sustained if they have multiple heartbeat/pings going at same time.

When I was going nuts a few years ago trying to record every tick I was pulling 17-23megs sustained download and pushing out 5-7megs of orders, confirms and message requests.

Anything that provides 25meg down and 5meg upload will be overkill for almost any small group.
 
Primary: cable ~18Mbps
Backup: DSL ~2.5Mbps

I can trade comfortably at around 2Mbps. Less than that I have to start getting creative in how much data I request.

Hotels around the country are absolutely awful in this regard. Does anyone know of a hotel chain that gives you a solid internet experience across the country? I.e., 2Mbps+ reliably? The most I've ever seen at a hotel is 1Mbps.

To get a guaranteed decent internet connection on the road I usually have to rent houses.
 
I can tether via bluetooth to my blackberry on ATT 3G and pull T1 speeds very reliably. Are you being throttled via hotspot login or are you connecting otherwise?

If you are interested send me a PM - you can easily impliment a number of (easy/cheap/free) solutions that will allow you to run programs at home and connect remote. You can do this very safely, secure, etc. over any carrier's 3G or starbux hotspot.

The bandwidth requirement is bs - the latency thing isn't discussed (sadly) and applies whether you are connecting remote or running remote.
 
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