Embodiment of present invention provide an optical interconnect apparatus. The apparatus includes an optical signal path; a first set of fibers attached to a first end of the optical signal path via a first wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) filter; and a second set of fibers attached to a second end of the optical signal path via a second WDM filter, wherein at least the first set of fibers is a ribbon fiber. Embodiment of present invention further provide an interconnected optical system that includes a first optical transport terminal having a first set of optical signal ports and a second optical transport terminal having a second set of optical signal ports, with the two sets of optical signal ports being interconnected by the optical interconnect apparatus.