|
James Heard, president of |
The new routes add to Level 3’s existing high-speed links to London, Frankfurt, Madrid, New York and Chicago. The company claimed the move is consistent with a huge rise in demand for networks to support high frequency trading. “People are no longer just trading on the top two or three exchanges and Milan and Zurich are fast becoming growing financial markets,” says James Heard, president of European markets at Level 3. “Having the lowest latency on a particular route gives traders faster execution on trades and more immediate access to data in an industry where fractions can have a significant monetary impact.”
Judy Reed Smith, CEO at consulting firm Atlantic-ACM believes Level 3 will continue to expand its financial services business. “These customers want to avoid any possible delay, so they will be looking at fatter and fatter pipes,” she said. Level 3 has also expanded its stake in the data centre market through a tie up with colocation and hosting services provider TelecityGroup and helping the company consolidate its position in Scandinavia. “Scandinavia has a reputation in Europe for being extremely advanced in its internet usage, translating into continued demand for data service,” says Niclas Sanfridsson, MD at TelecityGroup.
