N to one and one to one equipment protection switching

A method and apparatus for effecting 1:1 or N:1 equipment protection switching in the line units of a voice-and-data access and transport network includes three sets of switches associated with the line units that can be selectively provisioned by the system operator into protect groups. In one embodiment, the switches are arranged and controlled within the protect groups by one or more dedicated microprocessors such that, upon the failure of a protected one of the line units in a protect group, the stream of traffic to an associated, protect one of the line units in the protect group is dropped, and the traffic stream to the failed line unit is switched over to the protect line unit for continued processing.