METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TIME AND FREQUENCY TRANSFER IN COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

摘要

A timing system for time synchronization between a time server and a time client over a packet network. The timing system includes a time server for generating current timestamp information and a time client having a phase-locked loop driven client clock counter. The time client periodically exchanges time transfer protocol messages with the time server over the packet network, and calculates an estimated client time based on the timestamp information. The phase-locked loop in the time client receives periodic signals representing the estimated server time as its input and calculates a signal which represents the error difference between the estimated server time and the time indicated by the time client clock counter. The error difference eventually converges to zero or a given error range indicating the time presented by the client clock counter, which is driven by the phase-locked loop having locked onto the time of the time server.