Session P1a: Activities at National Metrology Institutes

Activities at the Bureau of Standards Jamaica: Developing a Time Monitoring and Synchronization Service
Terrence Jones, Bureau of Standards Jamaica; Demetrios Matsakis, MasterClock
Location: Seaview A/B
Alternate Number 1

The Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) has recently achieved direct traceability to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) through its official timescale's publication in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) Circular T report. Our timescale is based on two cesiums. Following standard procedures, data are reported to the BIPM daily for UTCr, and monthly for UTC. Time transfer is achieved via CGGTTS files using Microchip’s Precise Time Scale System (PTTS) 4380A.
In line with this development, the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) intends to introduce regulations requiring key sectors, particularly the financial industry, to adhere to standardised traceability to UTC, ensuring that the time offset does not exceed 50 milliseconds (ms). Tasked with disseminating the official standard time, the BSJ is developing methods to ensure various sectors comply with this traceability and maintain synchronised timing.
This paper presents the Network Time Protocol (NTP) method the BSJ uses to disseminate its official standard time over the public internet. It further details the monitoring system developed to track each client’s offset and round-trip delay in comparison to the BSJ’s reference timescale. This initiative aims to ensure operational reliability and precision across critical sectors such as finance, contributing to national technological infrastructure and global timekeeping standards by enabling accurate time monitoring and compliance verification.