Call For Papers

The conference committee invites speakers who would like to present on any of the topics highlighted in the grey boxes below to submit a short abstract for review by 30th April 2008.

DAY 1

Session 1 - SETTING THE SCENE

Session 1 begins with a high level view of the telecom industry - but from a timing and synchronisation perspective. It also provides an insight into the current NGN Standards’ activities in the ITU, IEEE and IETF related to timing and synchronisation. It sets the scene for 3 days of papers and debate on the hot issues that impact services, network architectures and transport technologies. Network synchronisation is often taken for granted but inferior synchronisation has a serious impact on network performance and QoS. This session will also explore real network scenarios and examples of good and bad practise in synchronisation design.

Chair: Charles Curry - Chronos Technology
Session Sub-Committee – Bob Cockshott, Ghani Abbass, Andy Bateman

09.00 Welcome & Introduction (Charles Curry – Chronos Technology Ltd, UK & Chairman ITSF) 09.15The importance of Timing in Modern Telecommunications Networks (Operator Key Note) 09.45 Time is Money - the Impact of Timing Solutions on Network OPEX and CAPEX (Analyst Key Note) 10.15 Standards Update:

ITU – Jean-Loup Ferrant – Alcatel-Lucent - France
IEEE – Silvana Rodrigues – Zarlink Semiconductor - Canada
IETF – Stewart Bryant – Cisco Systems - UK 10.45 Coffee & Tea Break 11.30 The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:
(A series of Short Case Studies about good and bad practise in synchronisation design) 12.30 Networking Lunch

Afternoon - CONSUME

Applications – The Consumers of Sync

Session 2 focuses on the real world applications that are the ‘consumers’ of Time and Synchronisation. Historically, synchronisation was fundamental to the way networks worked, and applications that needed synchronisation received it as a by-product of this synchronous or pseudo-synchronous transport. Few applications existed that needed time, certainly not at the microsecond level, and those that did were able to rely on protocols running over deterministic networks. Networks have changed but applications still need synchronisation and, increasingly, time. To deliver these to the precision required, we need to understand both the network architectures on which these applications depend, and the requirements of the applications themselves.

Chair: Martin Kingston - Orange
Session Sub-Committee: Sébastien Jobert, Ghani Abbass

09.00 Tutorial: Evolving architectures for mobile and broadband multi-play applications (Andy Sutton, Principal Design Consultant, Orange.)
An overview of the evolving architectures in which Synchronisation and Time dependent applications (including VoIP, IPTV, GSM, WCDMA and LTE) operate, providing context for the application specific papers following.

 

DAY 2

Morning - PROVE

Testing Metrics & Processes

Session 3 will highlight the increasing need for thorough testing, measuring and proving the performance of time and timing in telecoms networks. As networks are evolving to packet-based transport, their very ability to carry accurate time & timing information is changing at a fundamental level. This session will cover the traditional ways of quantifying synchronisation performance, and look at new metrics that may be better suited to newly evolved transport mechanisms. Accurate Time & Timing can become even more vital to revenue assurance when it underpins the new SLA metrics proposed for IP/Packet based networks.

Chair: Mike Gilson - BT
Session Sub-Committee: Chris Farrow, Dave Tonks, Phil Mann

09:00 Tutorial

Afternoon - GENERATE

PRS, Protocols & Distribution Technologies

Session 4 will focus on the generation and distribution of precise frequency, phase and time-of-day. Technologies used for generating said signals must comply with stringent performance requirements. The distribution of the signals makes use of different technologies, equipment types and architectures, depending whether inter-site or intra-site distances must be overcome.This session intends to address:

• Technologies for generating precise frequency, phase and time-of-day (atomic clocks, GNSS, eLoran, etc.)
• Techniques and equipment types targeted at the recovery and intra-site re-distribution (SSU, etc.)
• Equipment and protocols for packet-based distribution both within and between telecom sites (NTP, PTP or IEEE 1588, DTI, clients, severs, grandmasters, slaves)
  

Chair: Dominik Schneuwly - Oscilloquartz
Session Sub-Committee: Hartmut Roth, David O’Connor, Marc Weiss

09.00 Tutorial

DAY 3

Morning - TRANSPORT

Transport Layer (Physical)

Session 5 will examine how the physical transport layer of telecom networks can continue to be used to transport timing through packet networks. This session will focus on Synchronous Ethernet as a way to provide excellent frequency transport over Ethernet networks. It might also highlight the benefit of a good physical synchronous layer to help transport packet layer to transport time. This session will explore methods of carrying time or phase information together with Synchronous Ethernet.

Chair: Jean-Loup Ferrant - Alcatel-Lucent
Session Sub-Committee: Phil Larke, Michael Mayer, Carlos Moneró

09.00 Tutorial

Afternoon - TRANSPORT

Transport Layer (Packet)

Session 6 will focus on the packet technologies and operational issues for distributing high quality frequency, phase and/or time over packet networks. Different characteristics of packet networks used for synchronization distribution can have an impact on the delivered service.

Among other topics, this session will address:

• How do Packet Delay Variation and asymmetry affect performance of protocols like NTP or PTP?
• What metrics can be used to characterize the packet network?
• What impact could QoS, Traffic Engineering or network equipment design have?
• Would technologies such as PBB-TE, MPLS… improve results?
• What is the influence of the server and of the client on performance?
  

Chair: Laurent Montini - Cisco
Session Sub-Committee: Stefano Ruffini, Silvana Rodrigues, Tim Frost

09.00 Tutorial

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