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Abstract — Introducing a WDM dimension on the top of a TDM PON system is a natural evolution to increase the capacity of an optical access network, and this can also offer additional flexibility options. Several hybrid WDM/TDM PON architectures can be designed, each with a different degree of flexibility, going from fully static, over partially flexible to fully flexible architectures. The more flexible architectures, however, are either more expensive, experience a higher power loss or are less secure. A question that arises is if a fully flexible architecture is really needed, or if a partially flexible architecture already can serve several flexibility advantages, like energy efficiency, network migration and network extensibility. An important assessment parameter is the number of needed wavelengths at a certain network load. For a fully flexible architecture, it is clear that the number of needed wavelengths can be optimall