Resilient Time Synchronization in 6G Networks: A Hot Standby Solution

While 5G strives to revolutionize connectivity, 6G promises to further intertwine the realms of the physical and digital worlds. In the context of 6G networks, ensuring resilience in time synchronization is imperative for the realization of envisioned innovative use cases. In this article, we introduce resiliency in time synchronization for 6G networks with a hot standby grandmaster (GM) clock. In particular we focus on the integration of 6G with time-sensitive networking (TSN). Since it is not obvious as to where the two different GMs should reside in a 6G-TSN network, we present important considerations for choosing a GM location. We propose prospective time synchronization architectures and analyze them based on the standardized support for time synchronization. Finally, we provide some discussions on the proposed architectures and identify use cases where redundant hot standby GM would be beneficial.