US Patent 11916661 Distributing timing over metro transport networking

Systems and methods for timing over a Metro Transport Networking (MTN) path include detecting a specific block in a stream of blocks, wherein each block is encoded based on a line code, and sampling an output of a clock to determine a timestamp reference based on detection of the specific block, and transmitting timing information based on the timestamp reference. The specific block can be a control block. The timing information can be transmitted via a Precision Time Protocol (PTP) message. The timing information can be transmitted via a plurality of subsequent specific blocks.