Abstract-The mass deployment of fibre access networks is probably the most important network upgrade strategy for operators over the coming decade. Next generation networks, and in particular the Long-Reach Passive Optical Network (LR-PON) solution, aim to increase long term economic viability and sustainability of Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP) deployment. The LR-PON solution achieves this by minimising the number of nodes and the amount of electronic equipment required within the network. Since a LR-PON replaces the metro backhaul network, which is usually a protected part of the network, protecting the long reach part of LR-PON network against failures becomes a critical issue that needs to be taken into account. In this paper we introduce a novel protection mechanism that, by spreading the load generated by a node failure over the network, can significantly reduce the overall protection capacity required. We then present a practical FTTP deployment scenario based on our protected LR-PON architecture for a European country. The problem is modeled using Integer Linear Programming and the optimisation results, obtained using a real dataset provided by a national operator, show that a small number of Metro/Core nodes can provide protected connection to FTTP users. By applying a detailed cost model to the outcome of the optimisation we are able to show that our LR-PON deployment strategy that minimises the overall protection capacity, rather than just minimising fibre distances in the LR-PON, can significantly reduce costs.Index Terms-Long-Reach passive optical networks, network protection and resiliency, network optimization, cost analysis.