We experimentally demonstrate the use of orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes as a degree of freedom to facilitate the networking functions of carrying header information and orthogonal channel coding. First, for carrying channel header information, we transmit a 10 Gb/s on–off keying (OOK) data channel as a Gaussian beam and add to it a 10 Mb/s OOK header carried by an OAM beam with the mode order ℓ = 3 . We recover the header and use it to drive a switch and select the output port. Secondly, for orthogonal channel coding, we configure transmitters to generate orthogonal spatial codes (orthogonal spatial beam profiles of OAM modes), each carrying an independent data stream. We measure the correlation between the OAM codes and demonstrate their use in a multiple access system carrying two 10 Gb/s OOK data channels. At the end of this Letter, we combine the concepts of using OAM modes for carrying channel header information and orthogonal channel coding in one experiment. We transmit a 10 Gb/s OOK data channel as a Gaussian beam and add to it two 10 Mb/s OOK header waveforms carried by different OAM codes. In the routing node, we recover one of the headers to drive the switch.