Fiber projects compete for transatlantic speed

A few weeks ago I wrote about Project Express, a new fiber-optic cable being built across the Atlantic that will give a select number of high-frequency traders a tiny speed advantage in trading times between New York and London. Currently, data take 64 milliseconds (give or take a few fractions of an eye blink) to travel round-trip between New York and London along a cable built in 1998 called the AC-1.


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-23/high-speed-trading-my-laser-is-faster-than-your-laser

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-29/trading-at-the-speed-of-light

In April, the Canadian research ship Coriolis II will set out from Halifax to survey parts of the continental shelf stretching 1,000 miles off the east coast of Nova Scotia.

The ship has been hired by Hibernia Atlantic, a Summit, New Jersey-based company that operates undersea telecom cables, to map out a new $300 million trans-Atlantic fiber-optic line called Project Express. The cable will stretch 3,000 miles beneath the North Atlantic, connecting financial markets in London and New York at record transmission speeds. A small group of U.S. and European high-speed trading firms will pay steep fees to use the cable.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-29/cable-across-atlantic-aims-to-save-traders-milliseconds.html