The newly upgraded link utilizes the fastest fibre path available, reduces round-trip latency on the route by 36% and will further compliment the firm's wireless connectivity, in addition to providing tailored balances of speed, availability and cost.

This latest announcement follows a busy 12 months on the connectivity front for Options that saw the firm add Quincy Data's Quincy Extreme Data ("QED") service, enabling the managed service provider to offer data at the lowest known latencies to customers trading across markets in Equinix NY4 and the CME, announce more than new 60 markets, including ultra-low latency connectivity in NJ2 and NY4 to Barclays, Citi, Credit Suisse, Currenex and Deutsche Bank, and add HSBC and Alliance Bernstein dark pools as destinations in Europe.

The upgraded route was deployed as part of Options' PIPE® Velocity services, a key component of the Options' Private Financial Cloud platform. PIPE Velocity is a low latency trading, FIX connectivity, market data and computing infrastructure, providing clients with lowest latency and highest capacity direct market access both locally and in key trading centres around the world.

"At Options we pride ourselves on an ability to be proactive in addressing the needs of our clients and the link upgrade between Weehawken and NY4 is a further example of this approach. This upgrade supports the addition of market data and trading gateway access to Direct Edge, ISE, CBOE and BATS markets, as well as many other broker markets and electronic over-the-counter venues," commented Options SVP, Ken Barnes.

"The significance of this latest upgrade is further underpinned by Options status as an authorized redistributor, allowing us provide "vendor of record" capabilities which in turn, enable customers to optimize market data control, reporting and connectivity spend via the Options platform," Mr Barnes concluded.