arcutronix is following its motto "synchronise the ethernet" and now offers its successful EDX Family with Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE). Thereby the "last mile" and metro areas can be synchronised to a common(network) clock. Today SyncE is used mainly in the back-hauling of mobile phone antennas, which have had to be supplied with a separate clock network until now. In the future new services and service offerings will be possible due to the synchronicity of whole Ethernets, as one of the biggest problems of the (so far) asynchronous Ethernet has been overcome: Each switch or router’s internal clock setting its own “local” time which drastically reduces performance compared to other access technologies.

The synchronous EDX family synchronises individual network nodes and access devices via one of the Gigabit Ethernet ports. All other ports are served by this clock, as soon as the clock’s quality is considered to be sufficient. Clock information is forwarded hop-by-hop to all attached nodes resulting in paths that continuously synchronise from end-to-end and networks that are totally synchronised. The quality of the clock information is distributed with the help of special packets across the network and each node can report on incoming and outgoing clock qualities.

Jürgen Schröder, CEO of arcutronix, explains: "We develop intelligent solutions to establish especially the synchronicity in Ethernet and access networks. Our customers can extend their networks step by step with these solutions and they can build a network that covers all application Areas with a minimum of cost and effort."