TIMEBEAT
Timebeat is a UK-based precision timing company that helps organisations maintain accurate, reliable and verifiable time across critical network infrastructure. It designs and manufactures open-standard timing hardware and software, delivering synchronisation down to the nanosecond.
Precision Timing for Critical Networks
Every network relies on accurate time. When systems don’t agree on exactly what time it is, down to fractions of a second, things drift out of sync: transactions can’t be verified, 5G signals miss their handoff, security logs can’t be trusted. Timebeat solves this problem.
Timebeat is a UK-based precision timing company. It designs and builds the hardware and software that give a network accurate, verifiable time. Rather than a single clock, it uses three independent grandmasters, a 3-unit shelf of Open Time Appliances, reconciled through an ensemble technique into one agreed output that keeps every device on the network working from it.
For Cherry & White customers, that means more reliable infrastructure, stronger security, and an easier path to meeting regulatory requirements such as MiFID II and FINRA in finance, or MOD standards in defence and critical national infrastructure.
Why accurate time matters to your business
Most of what this technology does happens invisibly, in the background. But the impact of getting it wrong is direct:
Reliability. 5G networks, trading platforms and industrial control systems all depend on components handing signals to each other at precisely the right moment. Poor timing causes dropped connections, failed transactions and system errors.
Security and compliance. Accurate, tamper-proof timestamps let you prove exactly when an event happened, which matters for audit trails, incident investigation and regulatory reporting.
Resilience. GPS signals can be jammed, spoofed, or simply unavailable, inside buildings, tunnels, or under deliberate attack. Timebeat’s technology keeps time accurate even when GPS goes down, so critical systems don’t stop.
Timebeat supplies the physical clocks (hardware), the software that monitors and manages them, and cloud services to oversee everything from one place, across defence, telecoms, finance and industrial infrastructure.
Open Time Appliance
A rack-mounted master clock for your network, accurate to within 5 billionths of a second.
The Open Time Appliances sit in your server rack as a shelf of three, reconciled through an ensemble technique into one agreed output. Together they become the trusted time source for everything on your network, with servers, switches, trading systems and telecoms equipment all synchronising against it.
It takes its time from GPS and other satellite systems and cross-checks it for accuracy, so you get a time source verified to UTC (the global time standard) to within 5 nanoseconds. If satellite signal is lost, jammed or spoofed, the appliance keeps running accurately on its own for hours using an internal clock, so your network doesn’t lose its time reference at the worst possible moment. You choose how long it needs to hold that
accuracy without GPS, and price the unit accordingly. Built-in anti-jam and anti-spoof protection also close off a genuine attack surface: because so much depends on accurate time, it’s a target worth protecting.
It distributes time using standard protocols (PTP, NTP, SyncE, PPS), so it works with your existing infrastructure without requiring any changes to how your devices already talk to each other . Up to three fully independent units fit in a single rack space, so you can build in redundancy without needing three times the room.
Perfect for trading infrastructure, telecoms cores, broadcast facilities, and any environment where “everything running on time” is mission-critical.
Key specifications:
- Accurate to within 5 nanoseconds of UTC
- Multi-band GNSS, full satellite constellation support, anti-jam and anti-spoof protection Including OSNMA
- Choice of internal clock for holding accuracy without GPS: OCXO (< 1.5 µs / 24 h), Rubidium Black (< 500 ns/ 24 h), or Rubidium Black+ (< 120 ns / 24 h)
- Distributes time via PTP, NTP, SyncE, PPS and dedicated frequency outputs
- Built-in verification checks its own accuracy against other trusted time sources
- Up to 3 independent units per 1U rack space
Open Time Node (White Rabbit)
Sub-nanosecond timing over ordinary fibre, no satellite dish required
The Open Time Node distributes an extremely precise time signal, White rabbit is a protocol originally developed at CERN, over standard fibre optic cable instead of from a satellite dish.
That matters anywhere satellite signal can’t reach, such as basements, tunnels, secure or underground facilities, or sites where GPS is deliberately jammed. A single accurate time source can serve an entire campus or network over fibre, without a satellite receiver at every location. It’s also more precise than satellite-based
timing, accurate to a fraction of a billionth of a second. Each node provides four ports for this fibre-based timing plus ten standard frequency outputs, supports the more common protocols (PTP and SyncE) alongside White Rabbit, and automatically switches between time sources if one fails. Like the Open Time Appliance, up to three nodes fit in a single rack space, each drawing under 10W.
Perfect for defence and secure-facility projects, financial trading colocation, scientific and research instrumentation, and broadcast.
Key specifications:
- Sub-nanosecond accuracy over fibre, no GNSS required
- 4× White Rabbit ports, 10× frequency outputs
- Also supports IEEE-1588 PTP and SyncE
- Multi-source failover with built-in source monitoring
- Up to 3 nodes per 1U rack space, under 10W per node
The right timing solution depends on your network, your compliance requirements, and where GPS is or isn’t reliable for you. Contact us to talk it through, and we’ll share full technical datasheets and pricing direct from our partnership with Timebeat.
