Sequential Fixed Width Confidence Intervals for the Offset Between Two Network Clocks

Abstract

Estimation of the offset between two network clocks has received a lot of attention in the literature, with the motivating force being data networking applications that require synchronous communication protocols. Statistical modeling techniques have been used to develop improved estimation algorithms, with a recent development being the construction of a confidence interval based on a fixed sample size. Lacking in the fixed sample size confidence interval procedures is a useable relationship between sample size and the width of the resulting confidence interval. Were that available, an optimum sample size could be determined to achieve a specified level of precision in the estimator and thereby improve the efficiency of the estimation procedure by reducing unnecessary overhead in the network that is associated with collecting the data used by the estimation schemes. A fixed sample size confidence interval that has a prescribed width is not available for this problem. However, in this paper we develop and compare alternative sequential intervals with fixed width and demonstrate that an effective solution is available.