Apparatus for enabling recovery from failures in up to M working paths of a set of N working paths that are allocated N frequency slots of L different slot widths, where M, N and L are positive integers, N≧L>1, and N>M>1. The apparatus includes a processor and a control plane interface. The processor is operative to allocate protection frequency slots to M protection paths in different manners depending on whether M is greater than L, equal to L or less than L. The control plane interface is operatively associated with the processor and is operative to effect provisioning of the M protection paths for supporting recovery from the failures. Related network, apparatus and methods are also disclosed.