Fixnetix Offers Low-Latency LSE Data

The London Stock Exchange has broadened the delivery options for its Infolect datafeed via a new partnership announced last week with UK-based low-latency data vendor Fixnetix.

Fixnetix is currently providing its low-latency LSE feed to 10 "large" European and US-based investment banks, according to Fixnetix chief executive Hugh Hughes. Pilot testing with the vendor's first client, who signed up for the service in November last year, showed that the Fixnetix feed was beating delivery times from other vendors by between 300 and 400 milliseconds in slow markets and by a second or more in fast markets, he says.

"You can imagine the appetite that client had. They signed a contract with us the next day," Hughes says. In addition to speed, Fixnetix also ensures that the feed does not "drop" any price ticks during delivery, he says, to provide a full feed to algorithmic traders who require guaranteed delivery of every tick.

Hughes says the vendor's ability to provide faster data is as a result of having "the right infrastructure in the right places," which comprises a 100-megabyte Ethernet connection made available by network services partner Verizon, and which can be expanded to a one-gigabyte connection if required. Fixnetix also has a partnership with Wombat for feed handler technologies, and will work with other suppliers depending on client demand, he says.

According to Hughes, firms running a similar infrastructure on their own could "spend the best part of £4 million a year," compared to Fixnetix's hosted solution, which he says is a lot cheaper—though he declines to provide details of the vendor's fees.

However, the feed does not necessarily threaten the LSE's proprietary data distribution network business, as clients could be using a range of delivery options to receive LSE data, says Colleen Dennis, head of real-time data sales and vendor development at the LSE, responsible for the Fixnetix/Infolect project.