[time-nuts] The future of Telecom Frequency Standard surplus

[Bob kb8tq]

HI

Simple answer is: That depends. 

A number of systems are going to network based sync. That moves the “good stuff” back to a central location. The local “mini tower” will 
have some pretty basic parts in it. The number of mini whatever’s goes way up compared to an old style system. The number of central 
bunkers is way down relative to an old style system. 

Many systems are indeed going to much tighter holdover numbers. That is requiring either a much better OCXO or an Rb as a holdover 
clock. The bad news is that the GPS functions and the tuning as well often move into the firmware in the base station. The GPSDO
as we know it goes away. The OCXO has no EFC so it’s utility outside a SDR setup is somewhat limited. 

The world of telecom is a pretty big arena. Roughly 99% of what we see as “telecom” standards are actually cellular base station devices. 
The comments above are thus targeted at that market. The stuff above will shrink the size of the wireless part of the market. As a percentage
the rest of the telecom world will go up as a result. We will see more unusual stuff in the 5,6,7,8,9 era and less wireless related precision
standards.

Lots of fun !!

Bob


> On May 31, 2017, at 11:47 AM, Tom Knox <actast at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I think many of us Time-Nuts have played with the wide range of frequency standards surplussed from the Telecom market.
> 
> My questions is, will the quality of future surplus offerings go up or down as 4G and in the more distant future 5G surplus Frequency Standards hit the market? It seems with higher data rates stability and phase noise demands will increase, but will other advances find ways around the expense of a high end Frequency Standard. I know some early telecom systems even want as far as Cesium Standards, but more robust network tolerances seems to have reduced the need for that level of performance. So which way are we headed?
> 
> Any thought? I imagine some members are actually involved in design and implementation of the next generation telecom technologies and will have direct knowledge.
> 
> Thanks;
> 
> 
> Thomas Knox
> 1-303-554-0307
> actast at hotmail.com
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