A bufferless crossbar switch system and technique for synchronization and error recovery between switch line cards is provided. A network switches data through the bufferless data crossbar switch and distributes a high-speed frequency and time signal on a separate channel. The separate channel allows clock recovery, eliminating the need to encode the data in a way that allows clock recovery. The separate channel also gives a global picture of time so that a system can be globally scheduled by notifying ingress and egress line card adapters when to perform specific actions, such as transmitting or receiving data or retransmitting data for error recovery.