Patent ID: 7099354

Claim:
A method of frequency and timing distribution between a master timing element and at least one peripheral timing element interconnected through a packet-based network, the method comprising: periodically transmitting a timing packet from the master timing element according to a timing reference, each peripheral timing element coupled to receive the timing packets; transmitting an echo packet to the master timing element from each peripheral timing element after a timing packet is received by the same peripheral timing element; measuring a loopback delay between the start of the transmission of the timing packet and the reception of a corresponding echo packet for each peripheral timing element; reading a plurality of loopback delay values corresponding to a peripheral timing element over time and designating the lowest loopback delay value for the peripheral timing element as the nonblocked loopback delay for that peripheral timing element; and locking a loop in each peripheral timing element using only timing packets which incur a nonblocked loopback delay for the corresponding peripheral timing element as a reference.