Patent ID: 8340134

Claim:
A method of communicating count value information in an Optical Transport Network (OTN) signal frame, the method comprising: determining a count value indicating a number of payload bytes to be sent in a next OTN signal frame; determining that a change in the count value (Δ) with respect to a current count value is within a predetermined range; selecting an inversion pattern indicating the change in the count value; determining a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) code associated with the inversion pattern; inserting a first portion of the inversion pattern in a JC1 byte of a Generic Mapping Procedure (GMP) overhead of the OTN signal frame; inserting a second portion of the inversion pattern in a JC2 byte of the GMP overhead of the OTN signal frame; inserting a third portion of the inversion pattern in a JC3 byte of the GMP overhead of the OTN signal frame; inserting the CRC code in a JC4 byte of the GMP overhead of the OTN signal frame; and, transmitting the OTN signal frame to communicate the count value information.