Providing Access to Client Overhead while Transmitting the Client Signal over Multiple Optical Sub-Carriers

A method includes receiving client data; extracting overhead data from the client data; mapping the client data into one or more frames, where each of the one or more frames has a frame payload section and a frame overhead section, where the client data is mapped into the one or more frames; inserting the overhead data into the frame overhead section of the one or more frames; transporting the one or more frames across a network by generating a plurality of optical subcarriers carrying the one or more frames; extracting the overhead data from the frame overhead section of the one or more frames; recovering the client data from the one or more frames; inserting the extracted overhead data into the recovered client data to create modified client data; and outputting the modified client data.