This has been going on for several years at least. These are some pretty good articles from some amateur sleuths:

https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2018/05/07/shortwave-tr...

https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/shortwave-tr...

https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/shortwave-tr...

https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2018/07/16/shortwave-tr...

I remain convinced that this is Starlink's short-term customer if their promises are true. They are doing transmission via optical as the crow flies. If they're doing O-O, or even low latency O-E-O, they can beat transatlantic fiber. For HFT houses, that's potentially a major edge.

If I was regulating the markets I would introduce a random ~100ms delay into all transactions.

It's pretty hard to hide a yagi-uda antenna capable of transoceanic distance communications. The data rates are MUCH lower than what's possible by fiber and microwave, as pointed out in the article.

Now they need a bidding market to determine who gets to choose whether to send a 1 or 0 in the next available slot.

And another market for which bits to jam and prevent either value from getting through.

It's weird that we've set up a stock market for machines rather than humans, where ever-faster bots interpose themselves between slightly slower bots, all the way up to the original buyer and seller, who are probably bots as well.

So if glass slows the signal down, would it be possible to use a hollow fiber?

https://archive.vn/80BAE

Interview with the CEO of Raft Technologies, a company offering this service: https://chatwithtraders.com/ep-197-haim-ben-ami/