A method (10) of encapsulating digital communications traffic for transmission on an optical link, the method comprising: a. receiving an input digital communications signal having an input line code (12); b. performing clock and data recovery on the input digital communications signal to obtain input line coded digital communications traffic and a recovered clock signal (14); c. decoding the input digital communications traffic to obtain information bits and non-information bits (16); d. removing the non-information bits (18); e. adding service channel bits for monitoring or maintenance (20); f. assembling the service channel bits and information bits into frames (22); and g. line coding the assembled frames using an output line code to form an encapsulated digital communications signal for transmission on an optical link (24), wherein steps c. to g. are performed using the timing of the recovered clock signal. A communications network receiver configured to implement the method is also provided.