IEN TIME AND FREQUENCY METROLOGICAL ACTIVITY AND SUPPORT TO USER NEEDS

T71e increased importance ojtime andfrequency mmolog ~ in scientific and indushial applications has raised a request of a wider speckurn of services from the national standad laboratories. On the metrological side, a new generaion offrequency standards and the worldwide availabilitJ of eatrenelg accurate time dissemination sgstems bave opened new perspecfives of research and applications. The IEN Time and Frequency Lcrboraorg, charged with the recrlizcllion and dissemhiion oj the ItcJian standud time, in order to meet the requests of different users h s been engaged in differenl activities that a n m i d in this paper, where also the future p o s s i b i h are discussed. The IEN Time and Frequency Laboratory, which has been charged by law in 1991 with the research, realization, and dissemination of the SI unit of time for Italy, has been involved since the seventies in the realization of a local UTC time scale, known as UTC(ZEN), and has been contributing with its cesium clocks to the ultimate reference of time UTC establishe