- In March, a Chicago communications company plans to switch on an array of laser devices linking the New York Stock Exchange’s data center in Mahwah, New Jersey, with the Nasdaq Stock Market’s data center in another New Jersey community, Carteret, a 35-mile stretch
- It is the first phase of a grid intended to link nearly all U.S. stock exchanges this way
Some question whether Anova’s lasers will provide a meaningful speed improvement over networks that are already in place, since microwave and millimeter-wave order transmissions also travel at near light speed. “The difference between networks is getting very small in the metro areas,” said Stephane Tyc, co-founder of McKay Brothers LLC, an Oakland, Calif., company that provides fast trading networks. Still, firms such as Anova continue pushing to boost traders’ speeds by increasingly tiny slivers of a second.
There is a lot more at the article, which discusses how laser beams are apparently better than microwave transmission (the current technology).
- said the technology is expected to be largely free of weather-related consistency issues
- The flexible mirror system weeds out atmospheric distortions
- A a stabilizing system—first designed to let planes use the lasers while in flight—helps keep the devices in contact The stabilizing system also means the devices can be put in spots where other technology, such as microwave dishes, can’t go. That lets the lasers send signals along a straighter path and thus speeds up transmissions
Interesting stuff