ADAPTIVE COMPENSATION FOR INTERNAL ASYMMETRIC DELAY IN NETWORK BASED TIMING SYSTEMS

Embodiments of the invention include a network-based timing instrument that has a master unit and an internal switch that communicate with a slave device. The master unit includes a timing compensator. The internal switch is coupled to the master unit by the internal network and is also coupled to an external network that is outside of the network-based timing instrument. The internal switch is structured to provide speed information of the internal network and the external network to the master unit, and the timing compensator of the master unit is modified based on the speed information provided by the internal switch. The master unit may also modify the timing compensator based on a message length of messages sent by the master unit. Also the internal switch may be structured to provide incoming and/or outgoing message residence time information to the master unit, and the master unit may modify the timing compensator based on such residence time information. The same techniques may be applied to a slave node of a network-based timing instrument. Methods of adjusting network timing compensation of a network-based timing device are also described.