Not sure I catch what you seems to imply by differentiating Paper vs Real. I don't think that Paper is less well serving LII than Real.
Some thoughts:
What do you call platform ? TWS or Gateway ?
Are you looking at LII on TWS simultaneously ?
Aside of telco contention:If TWS consider increasing the amount of RAM allocated to TWS
Suggestion too look at the "halt" status, I never seen it moving fast in real time, but it may happens that the market itself is in a stall position.
I also would wonder what is the impact of using Smart mode versus specific venue like the primary exchange or a major one.
If one venue stall maybe it stall the IB deliver process. (unlikely in my deep perception as IB should deliver RT what they have available)
Otherwise said, what you call a halt for split second need to be considered against another reference, like a Bloomberg terminal or that class of platform
Because there are real reason why market may freeze waiting for something that trigger a big move (as in: cause or consequence ?)
