Interoute Takes Low Latency Connectivity To Milan, Amsterdam

The latest low latency foray over in Europe comes from Interoute (news).  This morning, the trans-european network operator announced that it has added major financial hubs in Milan and Amsterdam to its Fast Trade offerings.  More specifically, they added connectivity to Borsa Italiana in Milan and to the Equinix IBX in Amsterdam.  They did not give actual latency metrics between any particular points, however.  They are, of course, targeting the high frequency trading marketplace, in which every nanosecond counts.

While Interoute has less of a presence in the London-Frankfurt low latency competition, their influence is greater once the battle moves deeper into continental Europe.  And with euNetwork’s efforts to Stockholm and Level 3’s recent attention to Madrid, that is exactly where things have been headed.  For its part, Interoute already claims direct connectivity to some 24 major European exchanges and trading facilities.

But unlike in the US, where an actual new longhaul fiber route has been trenched, or even under the Atlantic where a new cable is in the works, in Europe they are still mostly fighting this battle via existing fiber routes.  And given the greater challenges to building anything in a straight line in Europe, it will probably stay that way for now.  But dozens of exchanges, each seeking the shortest route to each the others – that’s hundreds of combinations.  I imagine there will be substantial diversity across the whole field in terms of which provider is fastest for which route.  But surely only a few will be the critical ones?  A complex game of network chess is developing.

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Categories: Internet Backbones · Low Latency