A range of experts from across the telecommunications industry and research community came together on 30th September for the first in our Resilient Time for the Future webinar series.
Over 300 delegates from the telecoms sector joined NPL and BT for this online event to hear how time and synchronisation has developed over the past decades and learn more about the fundamentals of traceable time and distribution.
As well as sessions from NPL and BT, experts from Nokia, Calnex, ADVA and the Royal Institute of Navigation presented a series of Technical Focus Sessions on topics such as fixed and wireless infrastructure, monitoring, and GNSS derived time – providing a solid foundation of how time is used and distributed in telecoms.
Download the Q&As from our Resilient Time for the Future for Telecoms webinar
View the webinar
Key webinar highlights
Highlights from our speakers include:
Leon Lobo, Head of NTC, NPL
- Protecting the national time scale
- GNSS-independent timing for CNI
- Stimulating a supply chain in timing and dissemination solutions
- Addressing the skills gap
Mike Gilson, BT
- History of time in communications, the sources and distribution within the network
- Emerging applications and drivers in the industry, from drones to timing developments at CERN
- The importance of communication networks to transport time
Setnam Shemar, NPL
- How the global time scale is formulated, national realisations maintained and distributed, and the future for national resiliency in time
Tim Frost, Calnex
- Why measurement is important for 5G
- Regulatory and licensing drivers for frequency and time synchronisation, to maximise spectrum usage and interoperability between network operators
- Reliance on a common clock feeding all operators, currently serviced by GNSS
- Basestations need to be synchronised (for phase) at the <3microsecond level
Matthew Baker, Nokia Bell Labs
- How GNSS-derived time for 5G is widespread, critical and vulnerable
- The evolution of 5G to support distribution of time from: Rel16 supporting accurate reference delivery, through the developing Rel17 supporting Precision Time Protocol, and finally Rel18, increasing resiliency by reducing the dependency on GNSS and incorporating holdover clocks
- The NTC potentially providing the resilient source for these infrastructures
Nir Laufer, ADVA
- Threats and vulnerabilities that degrade and disrupt time in networks
- ITU development of ePRTCs as a mitigation
- Asymmetry as the biggest challenge to transferring time in networks
John Pottle, Royal Institute of Navigation
- Ubiquitous use of GPS – from Hollywood clapper boards to ATMs
- Threats, vulnerabilities, motivations and mitigations to time, using GNSS
- The importance for a layered approach to resiliency
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