Planning and Managing Sync In A Packet Network

As a key part of defending and growing their voice business, Telenor Denmark is investing heavily in their own packet-based infrastructure. The project will help them increase traffic across their network, deliver improved services to their customers and ultimately drive down costs.

Telenor Denmark is part of the Telenor Group, a leading provider of telecommunication services worldwide, delivering voice, data, content and other communication services to their customers.

“Telenor is extremely customer-focused and so the performance of the new network is critical.” explains Telenor Denmark’s Thomas Thorbjørnsen.

Chronos Technology has been working with Telenor Denmark since 2005, supplying network synchronisation hardware and consultancy as well as taking members of the Telenor team through the Chronos Synchronisation MasterClass.

Sync - a vital component

“We know how important synchronisation is in traditional networks. With packet technology, it is even more critical, Thomas Thorbjørnsen explains. “Because of this, we decided early on in the project that we wanted to manage our own sync. How we would implement and manage this in the network was a critical decision for us, so it was important to have a sound working knowledge of the subject.”

Evaluating the options

Before the company made any decisions about how sync would be implemented, the Telenor team needed to see for themselves how a range of configurations performed. “It was clear we needed a programme of evaluation and testing of the available options, before we made our decision,“ explains Thomas. “This is where we needed expert help. With the long-standing relationship we have with Chronos, we knew we would get a quality solution and independent advice.”

The test environment

Working closely with the Telenor Denmark team, Chronos provided the SyncWatch hardware and helped to commission the test environment. Running the system in ‘Standalone’ mode, sync information was collected and analysed for each sync configuration. After evaluating multiple set-ups, the decision was made to use the sync capabilities of Telenor Denmark’s chosen network equipment supplier.

Ongoing sync management

“Working with the Chronos team helped us quickly identify the best sync solution. But that wasn’t the end of it – we needed to decide how we would monitor and manage on-going sync performance too”, commented Thomas.

The decision proved easy for the Telenor Denmark team, as the SyncWatch product is able to continuously monitor sync and report back to a central management platform, as well as help with evaluation.

“Ongoing sync management plays a big part in maintaining network performance and helps Telenor maintain customer satisfaction.” explains Chris Roberts, Business Development Manager for Chronos.

The future

Telenor Denmark currently use multiple probes across their network, each collecting sync information and passing it back to the SyncWatch central management platform where sync quality is continually monitored and measured.

The company will be continuing the expansion of their packet network throughout 2010 and 2011 using additional Chronos probes to maintain that all-important sync quality.

“SyncWatch is a great choice for evaluating, monitoring and managing sync in our network,” remarked Thomas . “We are extremely impressed with the knowledge of the Chronos team and will continue to work with them as we grow our network.”