STAC Reports: Latency & Throughput of RAFT Chi-Lon Links

RAFT transmits from Chicago to London in less than 25ms.

14 September 2023

STAC recently performed its first latency and throughput tests of high frequency radio (HF) services. The services tested were RAFT HF Ultra and Super links, which are unidirectional from Chicago to London. The reports are:

• RAFT HF Ultra Link from Chicago to London
• RAFT HF Super Link from Chicago to London

To improve global reaction times, trading-infrastructure engineers constantly work to reduce long-haul communication overhead by piecing together communication technologies and disparate paths. Given that High Frequency radio (HF) has great potential in reducing long haul latency, STAC devised a series of latency and throughput tests for HF with input from financial firms.

Each of the "stacks under test" (SUTs)—the HF Ultra and Super links—allowed for 6-bit payloads to be sent with the RAFT Data-Path API v1.4.4 and had 1Gbe connections on each end. The Ultra link allowed for a message to be sent every 5ms and the Super every 10ms.

The key results for the HF Ultra Link are that during SLA hours (12:00 UTC to 23:59 UTC):

• The mean latency was 24.8ms.
• The daily Adjusted Goodput was between 77% and 94%.
• Link up time was 98%.
• Usable time was 93%.

The key results for the HF Super Link are that during the SLA hours (12:00 UTC to 23:59 UTC):

• The mean latency was 27.7ms.
• The daily Adjusted Goodput was between 92% and 96%.
• The link uptime was 98%.
• The usable time was 94%.

For details, please see the report at the link above. Premium subscribers have access to the code used in this project as well as the micro-detailed configuration information for the solution. To learn about subscription options, please contact us.