Apparatus and method for group-wise detection of failure condition

摘要

Group-wise testing of the clocks arriving at a switching office is undertaken by multiplexing the clocks onto a single line and developing a signal therefrom that is indicative of a problem, if it exists, in any of the component signals that were multiplexed. In one embodiment, the developed signal is a gated portion of the multiplexed signal. That signal is integrated over an integration frame and compared to the integrated signal of another integration frame. A difference between the two compared signals indicates that at least one of the clocks is out of frequency synch. Subsequent tests identify the offending clock, or clocks.