IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

The applicability of 1588 Time Synchronization over Packet Delay Variance Compensation
Scheme in the Wireless Backhaul Network
Altynbek Malibayev, Sanket Nasre, Ya-Li Kao, Debashish Dash
University of Colorado at Boulder

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

Table of Contents
Headline ................................................................................................................................... 1
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... 2
Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 3
I.

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 4
i)

Research Problem ...................................................................................................... 4

ii)

Research Question and Sub-problems....................................................................... 5

II.

Literature review ........................................................................................................ 7

i)

Project Extension to the State-of-art ......................................................................... 8

III.

Research Methodology ............................................................................................... 9

i)

Proposed PDF Algorithm....................................................................................... 11

IV.

Results ........................................................................................................................ 13

V.

Discussion................................................................................................................... 15

VI.

Conclusion and Area for Further Research ........................................................... 16

VII.

References .................................................................................................................. 18

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

Abstract Mobile wireless backhaul system demand highly precise clock synchronization within its
network. Precision Time Protocol version 2 is an evolution of clock synchronization standard that meets
the strict Time/Phase & Frequency requirements in different mobile technologies such as LTE and
WiMAX. However, due to the high implementation cost of PTPv2, its deployment or upgrade is a
demotivational factor for mobile operators.
This study examines the effectiveness of the PTP algorithm in software-based implementation intended
to improve the synchronization of distributed network nodes with non-1588v2 switches. This research
study offer a novel algorithm as an alternative during the transition period of deploying PTPv2 network
nodes and implement this C programmed algorithm in a real testing environment to measure the timestamped packets between grandmaster and slave nodes in different levels of traffic congestion based on
the Unix-like operating system. The results of performance allow us to understand the effect of C
programmed PTP algorithm on different settings in the backhaul system in terms of Packet Delay
Variance.
Keywords - Packet Delay Variance (PDV), Precision Time Protocol (PTP), congestion, IEEE 1588, C
programming, Linux (Ubuntu-Operating system), backhaul system, mobile operators.

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

I.

Introduction
The mobile networks have different technology generations such as 2G TDM, 4G

IP/Ethernet, 3G ATM/Ethernet delivered simultaneously over the same backhaul network.

All these technology generations have different synchronization requirements in terms of
accurate frequency or time synchronization. The mobile network providers when
implementing network convergence face many challenges one of which is synchronizing the
base stations. The explosive growth of data traffic in wireless industry has become a
milestone for large mobile network operators to gradually migrate from TDM based backhaul
solutions to an IP based Ethernet paradigm. The legacy SONET/SDH and T1/E1 backhaul
technologies were specially designed to meet the strict synchronization requirements of the
mobile base stations. As a result, the implementation of Ethernet in the mobile backhaul
network had been a major challenge for decades until the emergence of 1588v2 (PTP)
Precision Time Protocol [1]. PTP is an industry standard protocol used to synchronize nodes
in the packet switched environment. The underplaying concept of PTPv2 is to synchronize
distributed network nodes by delivering time stamping information between a Grandmaster
clock and slave clocks. The established hierarchy of a master/slave clocks in a network
allows the slave clock to regulate their internal clock source in a continuous manner. Based
on the report made by [2], PTP frequency and time synchronization accuracy heavily depends
on Packet Delay Variance (PDV). As [3] explains, PDV is the difference between the oneway delay of the selected packets.

Therefore, PDV is considered to be a key factor

deteriorating the performance of PTP.

i.

Research problem
The substantial share of the deployed packet switched networks runs on legacy switches

that are not equipped with IEEE 1588v2 support. Therefore, the effect of PDV on PTP
accuracy can be significant. As [4] explains, the main cause of PDV in networks is related to

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

the store and forward principle where switches and routers perform automatic buffering of
all packets before forwarding. In other words, all packets coming at the input ports are placed
in one queue regardless of their destination. As a result, a switch or router experiences
contention as soon as two packets arrive simultaneously at different input ports with the same
output interface. Since the slave clock synchronization accuracy is considerably dependent on
a symmetric path delay between grandmaster and slave, the exposure of PTP messages to
different delays contributes to the generation of Time Interval Error [3, 4]. Due to the speed
of outgoing interface and number of packets in the queue, PDV can get too large to maintain
the demanded synchronization accuracy in the mobile network.
The implementation of Layer 2 Quality of Service (QoS) appears to be the most sensible
solution as it gives timing packets the highest priority to minimize the queuing delay.
However, L2 QoS is not effective if the switch has started the transmission of a packet that
makes the queuing delay inevitable. For this reason, the introduction of the boundary and
transparent clock concept in PTPv2 has enabled asynchronous network nodes to significantly
reduce PDV value to a negligible figure. The downside of boundary clocking is that only
small share of the industry switches have the capability of synchronizing network nodes with
the relatively new 1588v2 time stamping protocol. As a result, there is an economic challenge
for mobile operators to deploy large scale backhaul networks with 1588v2 supporting
equipment [4].
ii.

Research question and sub-problems

The purpose of this study is to improve the synchronization of distributed network nodes

with non-1588v2 intermediate switches. In particular, the research aims at identifying the
potential of the time synchronization algorithm for IEEE 1588 standard to minimize the PDV
to an extent applicable to the synchronization of base stations in the wireless backhaul

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

network. Table 1.1 shows frequency and time/phase synchronization requirements of

currently deployed mobile technologies.
Table 1.1 Time/Phase & frequency requirements of some mobile technologies
Mobile technology
Frequency
Phase/Time
CDMA2000
50ppb
Goal: <3s
Must Meet: <10s for not less than 8
hours, with respect to CDMA System
Time (traceable to UTC)
WCDMA-TDD
50ppb
2.5s
TD-SCDMA
50ppb
3s
LTE (TDD)
50ppb
3s inter-cell phase difference for
small
cells, 10 s for large cells
LTE MBMS
50ppb
1 s inter-cell phase difference
WiMAX (TDD)
2 ppm
1 1.5 s

It should be noted that the goal of the research is to measure and observe the actual
performance of the proposed algorithm by employing the extended features of IEEE 1588v2
standard. Nevertheless, the research is not intending to obtain results totally fitting the
requirements of Table 1.1 due to time and technical constraints. As a result, the research subproblems are organized in the following order:
Design an algorithm of finding symmetric delay packets by employing a feedback
mechanism and increasing PTP packet rate.
Implement the symmetric packets programming code with C language on Linux
machines
Build an in-line network topology in the lab environment and identify the actual Time
Interval Error (TIE).
Test the performance of the algorithm under various levels of network congestion.

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

II.

Literature review

The IEEE 1588 standard has become a coveted area of research among scientists since the
last five years. A prime example can be the last year capstone project [5] that focused on
identifying the feasibility of using non-1588 node elements in differential protection system.
However, a majority of recent work done in this area propose and describe different types of
PDF (Packet Delay Filtration) algorithms aimed at enhancing PTP synchronization. Even
though the underlying logic of most PDF algorithms is based on increasing PTP message
rate, the implementation methods are different.
One of the first approaches to lower the PDV effect was proposed by [6]. The algorithm
employs a queuing estimation mechanism in which the probing packets are periodically
exchanged between the master and slave to filter out packets with high delay jitter. The
researchers used the OPNET discrete event simulator to conduct experiments. The main
drawback of the described method is associated with targeting only the minimum delay
experienced packets, because the nature of traffic load can be asymmetric.
Another approach, an enhanced IEEE 1588 time synchronization method, put forward by
[7] intends to perform time synchronization. The idea is based on an offset-correction
mechanism, where the actual PTP algorithm is complemented with exploratory messages
such as M2S EXPLORER 1-2, S2M EXPLORER 1-2. While the enhanced time
synchronization algorithm provides only 0.3 2.8 s bias error, the research fails to show the
algorithm performance under real traffic profile. Another proposed algorithm, which was
developed at the Heriot-Watt University Edinburg uses a sample-mode PDF method for 1588
synchronization [8]. The algorithm is based on creating more than one pool of sampled
SYNC packets that come from the master. After obtaining W samples of packets from the
master-slave, the delay distribution histogram is generated. By identifying mode bins with

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

relatively the same number of sampled packets, good packets (packets experiencing
minimum delay) are selected in accordance with the following formula:
(1)
Where stands for the width of a histogram bin, and mode is the sample mode.
Finally, an application report generated by Texas Instruments Inc. [9] proposes a lucky
packets algorithm that determines a minimum Master to Slave and Slave to Master delay to
correct slave clock offset. The basic idea of the algorithm is to search for minimum delay
while increasing PTP sync message rate up to 8 packets/ sec. The lucky packets algorithm
makes offset corrections after ensuring that MSdelay and SMdelay are lower than MinMeanPathdelay value. Even though the algorithm meets G.823 requirements, further
improvements are required.
i.

Project extension to the state-of-the-art

While our proposed PDF algorithm, called symmetric packets algorithm (SPA), is similar

to the lucky packets algorithm, the ultimate goal of the research is not directed at finding
minimum delay packets, but rather packets experiencing relatively equal delay. The packets
experiencing symmetric delay are considered to be good packets. The symmetrical line
delay means that the line delay from the master to the slave and from the slave to master
should be of comparable length. First of all, the implementation method uses a feedback
mechanism to adjust the PTP message rate dynamically so that the algorithm puts less
pressure on bandwidth consumption of other applications. Secondly, the algorithm does not
add additional elements to the existing IEEE 1588v2 standard, but rather takes advantage of
its extended features.

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

III.

Research methodology

We approached the research problem quantitatively in order to answer the research subproblems. The process of data collection was related to establishing a test environment. The
test platform was based on using the PTP Grandmaster, PTP client, traffic generator, and
non-1588 supporting switches. The whole testing process consisted of two parts: The first
part involved measuring the impact of PDV on TIE between Master and Slave under different
levels of network congestion. The second part was devoted to identifying the effectiveness of
the SPA to deal with background traffic burst. In other words, we did a comparative analysis
by measuring TIE without and with the SPA.

Fig. 3.1 Test Platform

Fig.3.1 represents a basic test platform where measurements were carried out. Three
Catalyst 2960 switches formed the core of the wireless backhaul network. In addition, a
traffic generator software was used to simulate a unidirectional UDP stream up to 10 Mbps
towards the traffic absorber. For this reason, the switch B was configured with 10 Mbps
interface bandwidth along the path from the Master to Slave. It is also relevant to note that
the packet size for background traffic was set to 1460 bytes. PTP Master and Slave machines
worked under Linux OS in order to exchange timestamps with microsecond precision. The
primary mode for emulating IEEE 1588 standard and obtaining timestamp messages was

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

10

achieved with the help of the gettimeofday() and settimeofday() library functions of C
language, which provides information of the local time of the PCs. Besides, the socket
programming part uses UDP in accordance with PTP specification. Finally, there was a
controller PC to measure TIE. The following steps explain the order of the test:
The initial step involved the synchronization of the PTP Master and Slave in
accordance with the basic PTP algorithm experiencing no background traffic (See Fig. 3.2).

Fig. 3.2 PTP synchronization process

(2)
(3)
(4)
Upon implementing the above calculations, the PTP Slave applied an offset to its clock.
After synchronization, the program forced both parties to simultaneously send a check
message to the PC controller, which in turn calculated the Time Interval Error (TIE).

In the next step, broadcast traffic was sequentially injected into the network with four

levels of link congestion: 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%, with the help of the IP Traffic Test &
Measure commercial software. We applied ITU G.8261 [8] recommendation, which defines
the network traffic model for testing purpose of this simulation. As a result, by adjusting the
level of link utilization between Switch A and Switch C, the actual PDV and TIE values were
derived. For the sake of clarity, it is important to mention that the deployment of the PC

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

11

controller to measure TIE adds an observational error. The reason is that when a checker
packet issued by both the end parties arrives simultaneously at the Switch Bs controller port,
one of the packets was queued. However, considering the small size of the check packet (64
byte) and the high interface port speed of the Switch B (100Mbps), we quite permissibly
ignored the 5.12 s transmission error.

The goal of the third experiment was to determine the performance of the proposed

algorithm that relies on increasing synchronization cycles between the PTP Master and Slave.
This allowed the PTP Slave PC to adjust its clock more precisely. Initially, the
synchronization cycle was set to be one sync packet per second for reference. In order to
calculate more accurate offset value, we took values for three different synchronization cycle
rates: 16 packets/second, 32 packets/second, and 64 packets/second.
i.

Proposed PDF algorithm

The goal of symmetric packets algorithm (SPA) is to select comparatively equal path delay

for MS and SM packets. The algorithm takes the advantage of the extended feature of IEEE
1588v2 protocol that allows the PTP Slave to increase the PTP timing packet rate of the
grandmaster clock depending on the severity of network congestion. The idea behind this
proposal was to ensure that only good packets are selected so that no occasional traffic
burst in the network can desynchronize Base Transceiver Stations. The block-diagram of the
SPA is demonstrated below:

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

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Fig. 3.3 The workflow of the proposed algorithm

According to Fig. 3.3, before the initialization of the SPA algorithm, it is necessary to
perform frequency and time synchronization. Otherwise, the slave clock having an initial
offset value larger than the specified boundary condition would reject even the symmetric
Master-to-Slave (MS) and Slave-to-Master (SM) delay packets. As soon as the slave
calculates the actual MS and SM values, it takes their ratio through the selection criteria,
which has been determined to be in the 0.91< MS/SM < 1.09 range.
The decision to set the boundary condition to such a specific value was based on the
assumption that the Linux system clock on Intel-based PC provides 20 PPM accuracy specs
[10]. Besides, the average delay between the grandmaster master and slave clock was
measured to be 460 s. Therefore, the slave having a clock drift around 20 PPM fell into the
pre-calculated boundary condition every second. If the MS and SM packets experienced
relatively the same delay, the computed offset value was applied to the slave clock;
otherwise, the PTPs feedback mechanism came into play.
When the MS/SM ratio was outside the scope of the specified range, the slave employed a
PTPv2s new feature associated with unicast profile. This meant that the slave was able to

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

13

affect the grandmaster packet emission rate by issuing a specific REQUEST UNICAST
TRANSMISSION TLV message [11]. See Fig. 3.4,

Fig. 3.4 PTP flow diagram with the SPA

According to [11], IEEE 1588 standard supports PTP message rate up to 128 packets per
second. So by accelerating PTP message rate, the slave increased the probability of finding
good packets. In addition, since the PTP message rate was adjusted dynamically, the issue of
large bandwidth consumption was eliminated.
IV. Results
In accordance with the research methodology agenda, experiments were divided into two
parts. The objective of the first experiment was to determine the impact of the increasing
background traffic on the PTP Master Slave synchronizing process. The following graph
demonstrates the extent of synchronization accuracy between the PTP Master and Slave in
the presence of traffic congestion.

1500

Time in us

1000

no congestion

500

20%

40%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011121314151617181920

-500

60%
80%

-1000
N, samples

Fig. 4.1 Time Interval without the SPA

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

14

According to the Fig. 4.1, the actual value of TIE is directly related to the magnitude of the
introduced background traffic. This implies that the MS and SM delay asymmetry have
caused the PTP Slave to calculate erroneous offset. In addition, the Fig.4.1 shows more
positive spikes, which can be attributed to the fact that the MS path fell under congestion.
The second part of the experiment dealt with the evaluation of the performance of the SPA
under different level of background traffic congestion and PTP message rate. Below is the
experiment output results in Table and graphical format. The Table 4.1 represents the
proposed algorithm performance derived from testing the three levels of PTP rate.
Table 4.1 The SAP with various PTP message rate and congestion

Packets accepted /sent

ratio in %

Congestion level
20%
20%
20%
40%
40%
40%
60%
60%
60%
80%
80%
80%

of Sent packets
of Accepted packets PTP Rate Accepted/Sent*100%
323
125
16
38.70%
608
271
32
44.57%
1208
68
64
5.63%
320
36
16
11.25%
605
196
32
32.40%
1228
56
64
4.56%
308
29
16
9.42%
622
168
32
27.01%
1106
31
64
2.80%
309
23
16
7.44%
620
112
32
18.00%
1039
29
64
2.79%

80.00%
60.00%
40.00%
20.00%

0.00%
10%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Congestion Level in %
Packet Rate 64

Packet Rate 32

Packet Rate 16

Fig. 4.2 Relationship between PTP message rate and network congestion

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

15

From fig. 4.2, we were able to see what particular PTP message rate produced the most
favorable result. Based on the above graph, it was clearly evident that PTP rate 32 packets/
sec appeared to be the most optimal choice regardless of the introduced network congestion
level.
Finally, there is a concluding graph expressing TIE for the case of PTP message rate 32
packets /sec in the form of root mean square (rms). In particular, the graph depicts two plots
helping us to draw a parallel between two experiments in terms of the generated TIE. Based
on Fig.4.3, the proposed algorithm demonstrates the expected ability to cope with large PDV
by filtering out only good packets. As an example, the graph clearly shows that the
application of the SPA algorithm reduces TIE between PTP Master and Slave from 573 to 62
us in the presence of 80% background traffic.

700
600

Time in us

500
400
TIE without SPA

300

TIE with SPA

200
100
0
0

20

40

60

80

Network congestion in %

Fig.4.4 Time Interval Error in the form of rms

V. Discussion
As described in the methodology section, three experiments were conducted to assess the
performance and viability of the proposed PTP time synchronization algorithm. The goal of
the experiments was to identify the extent to which the SPA is capable of minimizing the

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

16

actual TIE under varying levels of network congestion. As mentioned earlier, the
predominant number of mobile technologies has strict requirements for time-synchronization
of their base stations, which ranges from 1 to 10 us. According to the last graph, it can be
easily seen that the method of increasing PTP message rate in combination with setting the
boundary condition has a potential to significantly reduce TIE. Based on the Fig. 4.2, PTP
message rate of 32 packets /sec provides the highest performance. However, it has been
determined that the increase of PTP message rate does not always results in receiving more
symmetric delay packets, which is seen in the case of PTP message rate of 64 packets /sec.
Referring to the Table 4.1, it has been found that the probability of finding symmetric
packets, p(A), linearly depends on the magnitude of running background traffic. In particular,
p(A) with 20% congestion is determined to be 0.47, while for 80% background traffic p(A) is
estimated to be 0.18. However, no plot presented in the Fig.4.3 satisfies the requirement of
either backhaul synchronization standards. Researchers have identified that the major source
of error is associated with software-based time-stamping. Obtaining time-stamps from the
application layer involves large fluctuation of its values because of multiple running internal
processes. As a result, the study could not identify the ultimate potential of the SPA in the
context of backhaul network synchronization requirements.
VI. Conclusion and Area for Further Research
The Precision Time Protocol has established itself as a de-facto standard in the deployment
of next-generation wireless backhaul networks. While the IEEE 1588 standard is
characterized to provide sub-microsecond/nanosecond precision with the master-slave
architecture, the actual accuracy is heavily dependent on a Packet Delay Variation value
sourced from the queuing delay. The research paper proposed a new PDV filtration
algorithm, which is based on the utilization of extended features of the IEEE 1588v2
standard. The experiments conducted in the research aimed at collecting Time Interval Error

IEEE 1588 TIME SYNCRONIZATION OVER PDV COMPENSATION SCHEME

17

in the presence of varying levels of network congestion. A careful analysis of gathered results
has proved the viability of the proposed algorithm to cope with occasional heavy traffic
bursts. In particular, the proposed algorithm performance achieves the most desirable results
with PTP message rate 32 packets /sec. Finally, it has been found that the true performance of
the algorithm heavily relies on timestamp uncertainties generated by software-based timestamping. Therefore, further work is needed to answer the research question by testing the
proposed algorithm with PTP Master and Slave devices capable of hardware time-stamping.

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VII. References
[1]

[2]
[3]
[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]
[10]
[11]

[12]

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Chimento, P., and C. Demichelis, "IP Packet Delay Variation Metric for IP
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J. Hoyos, J. Khanin, S. Pujani, S. Hinck, Effects of Network Asymmetry and Traffic
on IEEE std. 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) Transmitted over Wide Area
Networks for Power System Differential Protection Applications, Capstone Paper.
University of Colorado at Boulder, CO, 2013
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using a queuing estimation method, in Proc. International IEEE Symposium on
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Brescia: Italy, Oct. 2009
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Asymmetric Communication Link in Packet Transport Network, IEEE Comm. Letters,
Vol. 14, No.8, pp. 764-766, August, 2010.
M. Anyaegbu, C. Wang, A Sample-Mode Packet Delay Variation Filter for IEEE 1588
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J. Rothweiler, Linux system clock and hardware clock accuracy?, April, 2013.
[Online].
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[Accessed: April. 10, 2014]