Facing up to practical measurement of MRTIE: a new effective methodology

Maximum relative time interval error (MRTIE) is historically one of the main time domain quantities considered for the specification of clock stability requirements in telecommunications standards. In this work, after the formal definition of MRTIE, the main issue of its experimental measurement is pointed out: the heavy computational weight in most cases of practical interest. Therefore, an effective methodology, conceived with the aim of providing an easy-but accurate-way to test clocks compliance with MRTIE standard masks, is herein outlined and discussed. Moreover, several measurement results are provided. These results have been obtained throughout the last two years by testing clocks of widely deployed digital switching exchanges, clocks of commercial SDH equipment and state-of-the-art stand-alone slave clocks (SSUs) for synchronization networks