OTN supports Transparent Transport of Client Signals:What does it really mean?

Transparency here is transmission over network without altering original property of the client signal.

G.709 defines the OPUk which can contain the entire SDH signal. This means that one can transport 4 STM-16 signals in one OTU2 and not modify any of the SDH overhead.

Thus the transport of such client signals in the OTN is bit-transparent (i.e. the integrity of the whole client signal is maintained).

OTN is also timing transparent. The asynchronous mapping mode transfers the input timing (asynchronous mapping client) to the far end (asynchronous de-mapping client).

OTN is also delay transparent. For example if 4 STM-16 signals are mapped into ODU1’s and then multiplexed into an ODU2, their timing relationship is preserved until they are de-mapped back to ODU1’s.