Optical switching apparatus, optical add/drop multiplexer and communications network node

An optical switching apparatus for dropping optical channel signals, the optical switching apparatus comprising:

• an input configured to receive optical channel signals;
• a plurality of drop ports;
• a plurality of working optical waveguides;
• a plurality of bypass optical waveguides;
• a plurality of optical bypass switches each having at least one input configured to receive optical channel signals, a first output connected to a respective working optical waveguide and a second output connected to a respective bypass optical waveguide, wherein the optical bypass switches are reconfigurable between a working configuration in which received optical channel signals are routed to the respective first output and a bypass configuration in which received optical channel signals are routed to the respective second output;
• a plurality of wavelength selective optical switching elements coupled to respective working optical waveguides, operable to drop optical channel signals at different channel wavelengths from respective working optical waveguides to respective drop ports;
• and
• an output configured to output optical channel signals that have not been dropped to a drop port.