There is provided an optical network apparatus having interconnected processing gigabit passive optical network G-PON blades, a protection blade, and controller blade, the regular blades and protecting blade having a higher layer processing and switching interface to a G-PON media access control MAC coupled to PHY including serializer and de-serializer modules that are connected to respective interface modules, the improvement including a protecting 1:N signal drive and a protecting N:1 signal select driver coupled between the interface module and serializer and de-serializer modules of the protecting blade, respectively, for protecting connection to the interface module of the protecting blade. The improvement further includes a processing 1:N signal driver and a processing N:1 signal select driver coupled between the interface module and serializer and de-serializer modules of the processing G-PON blade, respectively, for protecting connection to the interface module of the processing G-PON blade and a 1:2 signal driver and 2:1 signal select driver in the interface module for providing an alternative connection to the protection blade.