A method for implementing switching in the time or space domain, in which the switching is effected on the basis of switching data contained in an address control memory, and a basic switching block is defined on the basis of an incoming frame structure so that the number of its time slots corresponds to the greatest possible number of signals of the lowest level of hierarchy to be switched in the frame. The basic switching block recurs in the same form with respect to switching. In order for the switching to be simplified: (i) the number of the switching instructions to be stored in the address control memory corresponds to the size of the basic switching block, whereby when the basic switching block also contains higher-level signals, the same switching instruction is used in the address control memory at given intervals, depending on how the signals occur in the basic switching block, (ii) the same address control memory is read during the entire frame structure, whereby it gives a switching instruction to all time slots in the frame, and (iii) the switching instructions read from the address control memory are skipped during the time slots which are not cross-connected.