Weekly Takeaways-October 4, 2021

We recently got a question: Why pay for timing when the GPS signal is free? The snarky response: Why pay for cable when broadcast TV is free? Why pay for cell service when CB radio is free? But the better response: because timing from GPS is not nearly secure or accurate enough for modern networks, and there is no incentive to improve this for civilian use. Because of this a multi-billion-dollar cottage industry has been created for timing products that provide incremental improvement but still rely on the timing signal from GPS. Telcos and data centers also spend billions to extend holdover when there is a GPS outage - and there are many many outages per year. Xairos' timing service does not need holdover (indeed, GPS timing is the backup), delivers orders of magnitude better accuracy, is resilient to outages, will be continuously improved and supported, and cost the same as existing timing hardware solutions.