Time telling and time keeping are an essential part of our world, in everything from manufacturing to sports. Keeping accurate time is important for large buildings and campuses for corporations, manufacturing plants, sports facilities, educational institutions, media, healthcare and civic offices. Clock servers, Wi-Fi Network clocks and PoE clocks can be used to synchronize all digital clocks in a building or across a campus so that all display the same accurate time.

A brief history of time keeping
Time keeping has always been an important part of human activity, dating back to the ancient Egyptians. As early as five to six thousand years ago, they were using obelisks as sundials. Water clocks, hour glasses and other devices were used to keep track of the hours. The invention of mechanical clocks in Europe in the 14th century made it possible for the first time to standardize time keeping.
Contemporary protocols and clock servers likewise help to synchronize clocks. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) was introduced in 1985 and is still used today to synchronize electronic clocks and digital scoreboards. Synchronized timekeeping is used when all the clocks in a building, or on a networked campus of buildings, must be able to tell the time accurately.

Using clock servers and network clocks
Buildings such as schools, libraries, gyms, hospitals, police and emergency services, schools, manufacturing plants, and all kinds of corporate and government offices can install their own clock servers to synchronize all digital clocks. Synchronized clocks and digital scorekeepers are necessary for many sports like taekwondo, soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, wrestling and more.
Synchronized clocks rely on timeservers, which in their turn pull the accurate time from network servers.
Time servers pull the accurate time from GPS satellites using antennas and distribute it to all networked clocks. Time servers can be necessary for some purposes where extreme precision and exact synchronization is needed, for instance for navigation, financial transactions or military exercises. But for most other purposes, a local time server may just be an extra expense that serves no real purpose.

Wi-Fi Network clocks and PoE clocks
These alternatives to a time server can retrieve accurate time from other sources and share them across networked WiFi clocks so that all clocks in a building display the same time. This can be a more streamlined and economical option to installing dedicated clock servers. They can pull the accurate time public servers or internal servers already in use.
When using WiFi network clocks or PoE clocks, there is no need to purchase and maintain any extra equipment.

Organizations and institutions that need accurate timekeeping throughout a building or campus have several options. They can use a clock sever to pull time from GPS satellites if extreme precision is needed. Wi-Fi Network clocks and PoE clocks can be used in most other situations to synchronize all networked digital clocks throughout a building or campus.

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