Abstract: A branching unit for a fiber optic network carrying signals on trunk fibers includes an add/drop multiplexer for passing signals and/or dropping and adding signals on spur fibers, and further includes switches providing a normal signal routing between designated inputs and designated outputs of the branching unit and further providing an alternative signal routing in which no signals are routed to one or more designated outputs of the branching unit. Those signals normally routed to said one or more designated outputs are routed to one or more other outputs of the branching unit. Thus, the branching unit can be reconfigured by operation of the switches, which is especially desirable if one of trunk or spur fibers is damaged. The switches may include Bragg gratings and may be 2×2 optical switches, 4×4 optical switches or other optical switches in various configurations. Various alternate routings of signals are shown.