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by supahfly_remix 2849 days ago
> thanks to them we have shorter fiber routes across the atlantic at least.

Can you explain how HFT caused a shorter fiber route across the Atlantic? Is this route open to the non-HFT public?

I read Flash Boys and am aware of a custom fiber link between Weehauken, NJ and Chicago, IL, but I thought they are were moving to microwave. I thought there were some HFT links (fiber or microwave) within Europe.

3 comments

There are microwave links across Europe:

https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/hft-in-the-b...

There are apparently shortwave links across the Atlantic:

https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2018/05/07/shortwave-tr...

https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2018/07/16/shortwave-tr...

These should have a lower latency than fibre links although the shortwave link will probably have rather a low data rate.

Microwave is great for latency, but the bandwidth sucks. When you need bandwidth & low latency, you need a more direct fiber link.
I recall a new transatlantic cable constructed a few years ago being advertised as shaving off a few milliseconds. Trading and cloud providers were mentioned as target customers. I don't know whether they also route public internet traffic.