AbstractThis paper proposes a new integrated switching system, ‘elastic basket switching’, for broadband and multimedia communications, including voice and high‐speed data.In elastic basket switching (EBS), it is possible flexibly and efficiently to handle multimedia information by adaptively assigning communication resources according to communication requests and bandwidth of switched information. For continuous information, such as voice, EBS functions just as a circuit switching system, and for burst data it achieves high‐efficiency bandwidth usage equivalent to a packet switching system by demand‐assign type time‐slot assignment.The detail of EBS and its application to a departmental system‐orientated PBX are described. The traffic handling capability and details of the hardware structure are presented. The experimental system, including use of LSIs in the main parts of EBS is a