Method and apparatus for hybrid protection in a switching network

A hybrid protection circuit (10) operatively couples a plurality of communication paths in ingress cables (12) to a plurality of communication paths in egress cables (13). A line selector (31) effects protection switching of communication paths in one cable relative to communication paths in another cable, producing an output which is supplied to each of two switching sections (36, 37). The switching sections respectively effect switching according to a synchronous transport mode (STM) protocol, and an asynchronous transport mode (ATM) protocol. A multiplexer (57) selectively combines signals from the two switching sections, and supplies the result to a bridge circuit (61), which performs protection switching of these signals relative to communication paths in the respective egress cables (13). The hybrid protection circuit can be electrically configured to conform to one of various industry-standard protection techniques, including bidirectional line-switched ring (BLSR) protection, unidirectional path-switched ring (UPSR) protection, and one-plus-one (1+1) line protection.