A shared mesh data network (SMDN) for path-based recovery at the packet level. In one implementation, a first link in the network is part of two or more different protection paths, where each protection path corresponds to a different primary path. A network manager determines how much protection bandwidth to reserve on the first link for the two or more protection paths in such a way that the protection bandwidth reserved on the first link is shared between the protection paths of the two or more primary paths. As such, the amount of protection bandwidth reserved on the first link can be less than the sum of the bandwidths of the two or more primary paths. The SMDN provides efficient sharing of protection capacity. Implementations of the SMDN are appropriate to multiprotocol label-switched (MPLS) optical networks.