Jitter and clock recovery for periodic traffic in broadband packet networks

The transparent transport of real-time periodic traffic through a broadband packet network requires the recovery of source clock frequency at the destination. The inherently stochastic nature of packet transport in the network makes the recovery difficult. The authors illustrate the packet jitter phenomenon, describe several clock recovery algorithms, and provide a systematic design procedure for the implementation of these algorithms. They apply them to a computer model of a single-stage FCFS (first-come-first-serve) multiplexer to demonstrate their effectiveness and different design tradeoffs. The authors discuss the application of these schemes to audio and video services, as well as to digital circuit-switched traffic, e.g., DS1 and DS3