Recommendation 2 of the 19th CCTF (2012)

On improved internet services provided by the BIPM Time Department and their maintenance

The Consultative Committee for Time and Frequency (CCTF),

considering that

• the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) has steadily improved the visibility of its time and frequency information in numerous ways, including via downloads from the BIPM website. This information includes:
  • Clock data from both primary and secondary standards,
  • Operational time transfer data,
  • Backup time transfer data,
  • Corrected, processed, reduced and combined forms of the above data,
  • Reports of time transfer calibrations,
  • Time scales and other products generated from the above,
  • Intermediate products used in the creation of official BIPM products,
  • Products and data of special, experimental, and/or unofficial projects, for example rapid Coordinated Universal Time (UTCr),
  • Other publications,
• the information is frequently used for official, unofficial, published, informal and pedagogical studies,
• the information is used by manufacturers seeking to assess and improve the quality of their products,
• the public dissemination of information is very useful to the time and frequency community, and to the improvement of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) itself,
• detailed information on timekeeping infrastructure is very useful to laboratories when they begin to realize UTC for the first time,
• the BIPM Time Department recently circulated a questionnaire that solicited advice about the BIPM’s web services, and created a database structure for password-protected distribution of descriptions of the timing infrastructure of contributing laboratories,
• future improvements will continue to be well-received,

recommends to the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) that increased resources be allocated to the BIPM Time Department so that time and frequency internet services can continue to be improved and maintained so that

• annual requests could be made for both general and specific comments on the information that should be made available, the internet file structure, nomenclature, and documentation, and those comments responded to,
• additional and different types of data on the historical configuration of, and the observed performance of, relevant commercial equipment such as amplifiers, frequency standards, and time transfer hardware, both primary and redundant, could be gathered from laboratories that are able to supply the information.

DOI : 10.59161/CCTF2012REC2E