Timing distribution redundacy in a wireless network

Abstract

A timing network for a wireless communication network includes first and second Timing Unit Board (TUB) and processor boards for processing speech channels of the radio network, each processor board having a local timer that is slave to 'PSTN time' from a Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN). The first and second TUB each alternately transmits a timing cell containing time information to each processor board over a transport network. Each processor board realigns its local timer with the time information contained in a received timing cell whenever its local timer drifts from the time information contained in the received timing cell by a predetermined time offset. When one of the TUBs fails to transmit timing cells to the processor boards or transmits timing cells containing erroneous time information, the processor boards rely on the remaining TUB for timing cells to realign their local timers.