The new London to Frankfurt route offers a measured latency 4.22ms, while Colt's new Paris to Brussels route has a latency of 2.65ms. These latencies are significantly lower than those associated with other offerings in the market. Colt has achieved this by building two new, direct fibre routes and then applying its next generation technology to ensure the fastest possible transmission.

Structural changes in financial markets as a result of regulatory changes under MiFID have encouraged the rapid development and growth of High Frequency Trading techniques driven by powerful computer programmes, or algorithms, that enable ever faster trade transactions to take place. This evolution of trading has seen technology and networks become key differentiators for financial institutions in this extremely competitive sector.

Terry Quigley, Head of Industry Practices at Colt, said "When it comes to succeeding in the financial markets, technology - including the underpinning network - is what drives competitive advantage. Colt addresses the need to be ahead of the game with its FastNet Ultra Portfolio. By offering these new, significantly improved routes and combining them with SLAs that guarantee constant and predictable low latency, Colt can now take European traders to the next level of competition."

The Colt Fastnet Ultra portfolio is a range of services launched early this year [click here to read announcement] specifically designed for the needs of Colts financial customers, which include Europe's top 25 stock exchanges, hedge funds, central banks, market data providers and financial services organisations. FastNet Ultra provides ultra low latency connectivity, new fast trading routes, proximity hosting services and exchange & multilateral trading facilities (MTF) connectivity services.

Colt continues to invest heavily in its pan-European next generation network, capable of delivering up to 1.6Tbps capacity between cities. Using leadiding-edge technology from Infinera, based on its unique photonic integrated circuits, the Fastnet Ultra portfolio delivers high capacity, low latency Ethernet services between key trading locations across Europe at a significantly lower latency than what is currently available in the market.

Infinera (Nasdaq: INFN) announced today that Colt has deployed Infinera low-latency optical networking systems to support low latency services on its next generation pan-European network. With Infinera systems optimized to deliver substantial reductions in latency and the benefit of new direct fiber routes, Colt is now offering services with a measured latency of 4.22 milliseconds between London and Frankfurt and 2.65 milliseconds between Paris and Brussels.

Separately, Infinera low-latency solutions are engineered to provide significantly lower latency than conventional DWDM solutions through the use of innovative optics and electronics that drive latency out of the optical network. Infinera's low-latency solutions facilitate the delivery of native wavelengths across the optical network as well as other important data and storage protocols for applications including business continuity and disaster recovery. Like all Infinera networks, Infinera low-latency networks provide industry-leading levels of reliability and 24x7 customer support.

Infinera's Digital Optical Networks architecture enables the rapid deployment, fast provisioning, and simple, quick, and cost-effective operation of the optical network. Infinera's GMPLS-powered management software provides for end-to-end management of the optical network and the provisioning of services quickly and accurately with a minimum of human intervention.

"When it comes to succeeding in the financial markets, technology - including the underpinning network - is what drives competitive advantage. Colt addresses the need to be ahead of the game with its FastNet Ultra Portfolio. We've chosen Infinera for our next generation network, and our new low-latency networks between major financial centers, to give our customers the performance, quality, and reliability they expect," said Terry Quigley, Head of Industry Practices at Colt. Headquartered in London, Colt operates a 25,000 kilometer pan-European network spanning 13 countries, providing business communications and IT managed services to thousands of customers across Europe.

"We've worked closely with Colt to customize a solution to deliver the lowest possible latency to the Colt network," said Infinera vice president for network strategy Chris Liou. "As the leader in digital optical networking, our focus is on using innovative technologies to deliver new solutions and competitive advantages to our customers, and we are pleased Colt has deployed Infinera's unique Bandwidth Virtualization solution and low-latency technologies to enable highly differentiated low-latency services within Europe, including 1GbE and 10GbE and beyond. "