Fast computation of maximum time interval error for telecommunications clock stability characterization

Abstract

In telecommunications standards, maximum time interval error (MTIE) is one of the main time domain quantities for characterizing clock stability. However, the direct computation of MTIE, defined in ITU-T Recommendation G.810, tends to be unmanageable given large number of samples. This work proposes a fast computation approach for MTIE. The proposed approach is based on the recursive algorithm and the computation exactly conforms to the ITU-T G.810 MTIE definition. Compared with the direct computation approach, the computational complexity of the proposed approach is reduced by a factor of N, the number of samples. This study, thus, demonstrates that the real-time MTIE measurement or monitoring employing proposed computation approach is feasible.