In-band control mechanism

An optical node, coupled to a customer premise equipment via an optical circuit, the optical node comprising:

• a transceiver to communicate data frames with the customer premise equipment and to manage the customer premise equipment, the transceiver including,
• a monitoring function block to collect customer premise equipment management information,
• a framer to assemble the customer premise management information into the overhead of a first data frame of the data frames that is to be transmitted on the optical circuit without affecting a payload of that first data frame, and
• a transmission block to transmit the first data frame that includes the customer premise equipment management information to the customer premise equipment.

An optical network that, manages in-band, a customer premises equipment that is coupled to an optical node via an optical circuit, the optical network comprising:

• the customer premises equipment;
• and
• the optical node that communicates data frames with the customer premises equipment, wherein the optical nodes includes,
• a transceiver that collects customer premise equipment management information, assembles the customer premise management information into the overhead of one of the data frames that is to be transmitted on the optical circuit without affecting a payload of that data frame, and transmits, to the customer premise equipment, the one of the data frames that includes the customer premise equipment management information.