to allow flexible growth of the cross connect capacity of a roadm node by applying the concepts of incremental growth and partial connectivity wss port expansion only needs to be added to degrees that have exhausted the available number of wss ports associated with that degree also configurations similar to those in fig2 and 5 can both be used as needed for adding new degrees to a node in this way an incrementally scalable cross connect can be realized that can grow as needed to support a very large number of degrees implementing partial connectivity requires eliminating the fixed association between wss ports and roadm node degrees that are typically found in current roadm nodes through either software limitations or fixed fiber interconnection eliminating these fixed associations allows for more efficient and flexible use of wss port capacity but can result in more complicated fiber interconnection issues options for addressing the fiber interconnection are to 1 use a fiber distribution frame fdf or similar passive fiber interconnection management panel 2 use a fiber cross connect switch or 3 use a combination of fixed pre determined fiber interconnection and small scale fiber cross connect switches the proposed methods provide a solution for expanding the cross connect capacity of current multi degree roadm nodes with the additional capacity.