Assessing Time Transfer Methods for Accuracy and Reliability : Navigating the Time Transfer Trade-off Triangle

We present a collected overview on how to assess both the accuracy and reliability levels and relate them to the required effort, for different digital methods of synchronizing clocks. The presented process is intended for end users who require time synchronization but are not certain about how to judge at least one of the aspects. It can not only be used on existing technologies but should also be transferable to many future approaches. We further relate this approach to several examples. We discuss in detail the approach of medium-range White Rabbit connections over dedicated fibers, a method that occupies an extreme corner in the evaluation, where the effort is exceedingly high, but also yields excellent accuracy and significant reliability.