Verizon today launched a new low-latency network for financial services firms that can complete a stock trade between New York and Chicago in as little as 14.5 milliseconds.

The Australia-Japan Cable is upgrading its subsea cable route and has signed networking vendor, Ciena, to help out.

After several days of gains, tech stocks dropped Thursday as markets declined on disappointing news from Europe, where government officials are meeting to try to solve the sovereign debt crisis afflicting several countries in the euro area.

“The new network will form the backbone for IP and Ethernet products AAPT will offer to the market,” according to Ciena general manager

Latest news on new appointments and management changes

Major U.S. stock markets on Friday closed for a sixth straight week of losses, the worst weekly losing streak since the third quarter of 2002, during the dot-com bust.

Networking vendor, Aruba has appointed Sue Stokes to a newly created role as its northern region territory manager.

Ciena plunged deeper into the red following its acquisition of Nortel Networks' metro Ethernet business, with sales of its legacy products stagnating, it reported Wednesday.