Solutions to frequent or odd disconnects from your real-time datafeed (part 2)

Using direct connection has its advantage (over Wi-Fi)

It is best to use direct connection (i.e. with ethernet cable and all that) over Wi-Fi connection, because it can remove one potential cause of disconnect easily. Interference within your home can sometimes disconnect your computer from the Internet.

For example, there are some wireless home phone that, when in use, can drop your computer’s Wi-Fi connection quality significantly. If you experience data lag or disconnect when you are on the phone, then see if you can move the base of the wireless home phone away from the computer to improve the situation.

Signal Booster or Range Extender can cause significant lag at the receiving end

These devices simply relay the data between your computer and the router. It works perfectly IF the data to be transmitted is not time sensitive.

Why?

They are middlemen delivering the data transmitted between your computer and the Internet. These devices are not designed for real-time data relay, thus time sensitive information can backlog a few seconds before they show up on your screen. The idea is that if you are just browsing the Internet, you can probably afford to wait a bit longer for the information.

Well, if you are using one of these devices to get real-time data into your trading computer, then rethink/redesign your network at home so that the trading computer can be connected to the Internet without going through the booster/extender. One common way is to swap the wireless router closer to the trading computer and setup the booster/extender at the old spot where the wireless router was.

Lag (and subsequently disconnect) from source due to location difference

Sometimes, depending on your physical location or the ISP you are using, you would experience lag so bad that makes no sense.

Welcome to the world of Internet data routing – there is no fixed path where and how the data from your data vendors are delivered to you. There can be just a few intermediate points when you connect to your data service in the morning, giving you the data on time. Yet, in the afternoon, when you login again, there can be many intermediate points used to establish your connection to the data service as Internet traffic getting busy during business hours, making your real-time data streaming laggy.

If you do not living close to the physical location of your real-time data service centres, then, one way to get better routing is to connect to your data vendor early in the morning, before market hours. That will usually give you the shorter routes that translate to better real-time data streaming for the rest of the day (as long as you stay connected to your data service).

High-end datafeed or brokerage connection expects better Internet capacity

If you subscribe to high-end datafeed to stream a lot of data in real-time (e.g. 500+ symbols), then you need to match that with better Internet connection. If you are using an extreme low-end DSL/cable connection where the capacity is not capable of handling the massive amount of data flooding into your network from your data service, you will be disconnected frequently.

Changing computer hardware, software, router, etc. will not help in this case. You need to upgrade your Internet connection to something that can handle the amount of data you are streaming.

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