The current offering of forex-data, from DTN-IQFeed, is useful only to the most naive or casual forex traders/users. Why? Barclays and Tuttle are only two banks, i.e., they are just two of several hundreds of potential 'market-makers'. Since the Forex 'market' is NOT represented by just ONE ECN-type exchange, the typical retail-forex-trader is usually stuck with 'trading' with/against the 'dealing-desk' of ONE of the many 'market-makers' (banks, and non-banks included). Remember, the dealing-desk of a market-maker is taking the other side of your so called forex-trade, and therefore, the liquidity is likely to be only what that one market-maker wants you to see (and not see?).
Much more useful forex-data would be the 'total' aggregate contributions of all (or most) of the market-makers. Such a data-feed is available from the Interactive Data Corporation (IDC), and its subsidiary, ComStock Inc. This data feed has been referred to as the GTIS, and/or the PlusFeed, and it is currently only available at the retail-level through one of IDC's branded businesses known as eSignal. (with its Forex add-on product)... ooops that is one of DTN's competitors, right?
But short of DTN developing their own direct communication connections to all of those data-sources, maybe there is a way for DTN to buy the data from ComStock too? Or another and better idea is to create a whole centrally-cleared, global foreign exchange (FX) platform for the over the counter (OTC) market.
But that is exactly what the "FX Market Place" , a joint venture between CME and Reuters (and the 'new' CME, called the "CME Group" is doing now! See
http://www.cmegroup.com/ and then click on link to Strategic Partners,
http://www.fxmarketspace.com/ . According to this website, the "FXMarketSpace is the first centrally-cleared, global foreign exchange (FX) platform for the over the counter (OTC) market." As far as I can tell, this FX data is currently being offered only through Reuters 3000 Xtra terminals, but maybe DTN can be involved too?
So, I would encourage DTN's management to either provide the same data forex data service as now provided by eSignal, or provide a data-feed to the FX Market Place (CME) that does not require the institutional-level Reuters services (that are too expensive for the retail forex market).
In lieu of such a real forex CENTRAL-exchange, that replaces the current off-exchange aggregate of many (separate) market makers, there are just a few multi-liquidity-source type of ECNs (with a NON-dealing-desk infrastructure and business model).
The only two that I currently know of are EFX Group and Hotspot FX, and the data-feed for each of those is available via the eSignal-FX data-feed (when separated as just one 'component', apart from the aggregated total, using a special eSignal-symbol format).
The EFX Group offers STP/ECN for the processing of forex-trades:
http://www.efxgroup.com/about-STP-ECN-definitions.html . Just like in the stock world with ARCA and ISLD, a EFX Group customer is trading the Forex market via an ECN that allows client orders to see and execute against other customer orders anonymously. In otherwords, there is a 'Level II' access to/by all participants in the ECN.
The Level I and II data from EFX Group's and HotSpot-FX's ECN are available via their platform (but not the history data), while the Level I data is ALSO available via the eSignal-FX subscription, with some history data too.
My suggestion is that DTN IQFeed should include access to both of these two real-time-streaming ECN's, and their HISTORY data, along with all of the other 200 (or more) usual market-makers, including Barclays and Tuttle (in order to get a more complete picture of all Forex-participants)
Any comments on DTN's plans in this area?