Server location and ping: how much distance actually matters

[FXS London Scalper]

Brokers often have trade servers in London, New York or other financial centres. Choosing a VPS near the server reduces ping, but the benefit depends on the trading style.

Rough scales:

• Same data centre: around 1 ms.
• Same city: a few ms.
• London to Frankfurt or Amsterdam: around 10 ms.
• London to New York: around 70 ms.
• Home internet: varies widely.

For manual scalping, human reaction time is far larger than any of these. Ping matters most for automated systems reacting to quick ticks, and for stop orders that are managed client-side.

How to check where the server is: ask support, or use traceroute from a VPS to the server address and look at the last hops. Ping from a VPS in different locations also shows which is closest.

A worked example of what to measure: compare slippage per trade from two locations. If the difference is negligible, the cheaper option is fine.

Do you know where your broker's server is?