By Tim Ferguson
Friday, May 08 2009 11:36 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,62053890,00.htm

Financial trading businesses in London can now link to stock exchanges via the city's sewers.

Optical fiber network provider, Geo, has opened a new high-capacity network for financial trading organizations to carry out automated trades more efficiently.

Geo.TradeNet links financial service companies directly to the major trading venues so that data has to travel the least possible distance leading to quick transactions and low latency.

A Geo spokesman told ZDNet Asia's sister site Silicon.com: "A lot of trading these days is automated. If you're a few microseconds behind another trader, they might potentially get those shares a little bit more cheaply than you did, and if you scale that up that can translate to hundreds of thousands of pounds."

According to Geo, sewers are often more direct routes around the city than telco rings and other infrastructure while the network has little intervening hardware to slow data down.

The use of optical fiber means that a circuit of 15km will have latency of less than 0.1 milliseconds.

As the connections are below road level, Geo claims they are much less likely to be affected by road or utilities maintenance work, making the network more reliable than other options.

In addition, because the sewer tunnels are already in place, connecting to the network is fast and low cost as no digging is required.

The spokesman added: "Geo's network is unusually safe because your normal fiber optic network is a few feet below the ground… but Geo's network is down in the sewers where essentially no one can dig it up, no one can put a pneumatic drill through it."

Geo chief executive, Chris Smedley, said in a statement: "A data network, based on the right assets, away from likely sources of damage and disruption, is the best way for financial institutions to guarantee the uptime and low-latency they need."

Tim Ferguson of Silicon.com reported from London.