| Like many of his colleagues, Göran Rangne at the Systems Development department has been with Net Insight for a long time – ten years in Göran’s case. Apart from nice colleagues and decent coffee, he suggests plenty of opportunity for professional and personal development as an important reason why he has never contemplated leaving. |
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“I enjoy being constantly faced with new challenges and to come up with solutions as fast as possible. My department contributes to making our products better all the time and my job never gets dull.”
Like many of his colleagues, Göran holds a Master of Science degree. He has recently been active in developing Net Insight’s new Time Transfer function, which is now integrated into all aspects of the Nimbra platform; hardware, software and firmware. Research and development is highly customer driven at Net Insight and the challenge behind this project was to come up with a solution that would free customers from being dependent on GPS timing. If successful,
this would reduce dependencies as well as costs to network operators.
“Today’s society is becoming increasingly dependent on GPS timing for many critical everyday services, such as digital TV and radio distribution systems and mobile networks,” Göran explains.
During several years of hard work, Göran and his team successfully developed Time Transfer, which automatically provides UTC time synchronization at all nodes in the network. Göran recalls that the opportunity to gather real-life experiences of the new solution was very important and that Norkring was very helpful in this respect. “Large-scale networks in a real environment offer conditions that aren’t easily simulated at the drawing board or in a lab environment.”
1.5 millionth of a second
Accurate timing is crucial to single-frequency (SFN) digital TV and mobile telephony networks. When all transmitters use the same frequency, transmissions must take place simultaneouslyin order to avoid interference. The maximum allowed deviation is 1.5 millionth of a second after ten hops.
Göran tries in simple terms to explain how Time Transfer works:
“The first node in the network receives UTC time. This time signal is then transferred through the network on a node-by-node basis, with each node updating the accurate time based on the received time and how long it took for the signal to arrive from the preceding node in the network. The technical principle is that you measure the time it takes for a roundtrip signal to travel between the nodes and divide it by two. This is followed by calculations at each end to consider the actual distance between the two nodes. If necessary, corrections are made for asymmetric links.”
The usefulness of accurate timing stretches far beyond digital TV networks, however, as the rapid growth in live media exchange has boosted demand for time synchronization in general, Göran points out.
“Real-time video traffic between broadcasters and production companies, for example, requires time synchronization between different studios and locations. In that case – and whenever there is a need to synchronize time between two or more locations – Time Transfer is very useful as it eliminates the need to buy separate GPS equipment.”
Göran has already encountered many positive reactions among Net Insight’s customers.
“I know it has added a dimension to our talks with customers and that Net Insight is moving beyond core network functionality towards the overall security aspects of a communication network.”
To conclude, Göran enjoys being part of a fast-moving industry where the speed of technical development is extremely high, and he is convinced the future belongs to Net Insight.
“Today’s consumers capture HD video and stills, which they share online with each other and via sites like YouTube and communities such as FaceBook. This paves the way for a huge traffic increase and consequently a growing demand for Net Insight’s products.”