Traders have to ensure that they not only rely on real-time data to highlight increases in latency, but also take a long-term view, according to Narain.

"There are a lot of vendor tools out there to help you measure latency. There are network packets and statistical packages you can use; but you need to understand they provide snapshots or long-term sophisticated measures.

"Is performance consistent throughout the day? Is it the same hour by hour? Is there a dip when New York comes onto the network? Those are real-time measurements," he said.

He added: "Then there are long-term measurements. Is there a degradation of performance over one or two months? If there is, this might be because the telco itself is doing some work on its network and it has a lot of customers on it slowing it down."

Finally, Narain warned traders that their internal infrastructure is "out of date every two years". He said that depending on the business requirements for minimal latency, firms should be looking to upgrade their network every two to four years.