Patent ID: 8446922

Claim:
A method for multiplexing and mapping services to an Optical channel Transport Unit-k (OTUk), the method comprising: filling service data at different rate levels into a container block comprising at least one Optical channel Payload Unit-k (OPUk) area container having at least one frame, wherein the at least one OPUk area container is divided into a plurality of sub-timeslots, the plurality of sub-timeslots are combined to form the at least one OPUk area containers, each of the OPUk area container carries service data at a corresponding rate levels; filling service clock information into an OPUk overhead (OH) area to indicate a service clock; and filling compensating information into the OPUK overheard area to indicate difference between clocks of service data in the OPUK containers and the service clock, wherein the rate of the service data is between 0 and f opuk Tp * Tc ⁢ ⁢ Gbit ⁢ / ⁢ s , wherein Tp is total number of the sub-timeslots, and Tc is number of the sub-timeslots carrying the service data, and fopuk is transmitting frequency of service data in OPUk.