China Mobile Taps Symmetricom for PTN Deployment

Symmetricom, a global provider of precision time and frequency technologies, has revealed that China Mobile (News - Alert), a service provider, has selected Symmetricom's TimeProvider 5000 Grandmaster Clock to deploy IEEE 1588 (PTP) and Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) for its Packet Transport Network (PTN) deployment. 

The world's largest mobile telecommunications carrier selected to deploy SyncE in the network core and PTP over the top to the base stations. SyncE provides frequency synchronization for Ethernet networks.

"As China Mobile continues its PTN network rollout and evolves towards smaller cell architecture, we see an increasing role for PTP as the primary synchronization solution, which will support data traffic growth while ensuring service continuity for our customers," said Li Han, China Mobile Research Institute, in a statement.  

"Symmetricom is a key partner providing interoperable timing and synchronization solutions for PTP, which have been successfully deployed in numerous global networks," Han added.

China Mobile is looking at transitioning from time division multiplexing (TDM) based network to a Packet Transport Network (PTN) due to the proliferation of smartphones and growing demand for video and data services.

"Most operators are managing heterogeneous networks that require multi-sync capabilities," said Manish Gupta (News - Alert), vice president of marketing at Symmetricom. "Selection of our multi-sync platform by China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator, validates the solutions' superior performance and resilience."

The company said in a press release that Symmetricom solutions provide the synchronization required by mobile operators for Ethernet backhaul. The TimeProvider 5000 Grandmaster Clock is a packet-based timing and frequency solution that combines the functionality of an IEEE (News - Alert) 1588 grandmaster clock with enhancements to support SyncE, Network Time Protocol (NTP), E1/T1 and Time of Day (ToD).  

Recently, test and measurement company Spirent announced its participation in Symmetricom’s SyncWorld Ecosystem Program. The program was launched in early 2011 to offer support to the precise timing and synchronization that is imperative while transitioning to all-IP backhaul networks and 4G/LTE (News - Alert) mobile platforms.

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