Performance Evaluation of PTP Synchronization Networks for 5G Front/Mid-Haul Transport

New mobile 5G networks development is focused on guaranteeing reliable low-latency services to a large number of connected devices. To achieve these goals, 5G Radio Access Techniques (RAT) require unprecedentedly accurate time synchronization of network elements. Therefore, synchronization performance evaluation is essential in system design. We evaluated the performance of time synchronization networks for 5G Front/Mid-Haul Transport systems. In the time domain, we simulated clock systems as defined by ITU-T in the Full Timing Support architecture, where frequency and time synchronization are achieved via Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) and IEEE 1588 / Precision Time Protocol (PTP), respectively. Clock models have been coded in Simulink modules, which can be combined to simulate various network topologies. In this paper, we present simulations of clocks and ring synchronization networks for 5G Front/Mid-Haul, considering generated noise and rearrangements after link failures. Experimental measurements on real equipment were carried out, to tune model parameters and for comparison with simulation results.