Methods and apparatus for providing a time slot switch which performs switching in the optical domain without the need for O-E-O conversion is described. The time slot switching device of the present invention may be part of a large switching device capable of performing switching and other function on WDM, TDM and WDM signals which are time division multiplexed. An optical time slot switch implemented using a time slot demultiplexer, optical cross-connect, variable delay lines and time slot multiplexer are described. Frequency conversion may be performed on a per time slot basis in cases where time slot signals are switched between lines using different wavelengths. Wave division demultiplexers and multiplexers can be added to the basic time slot switch to provide support for WDM switching and switching of TDM signals which are transmitted using wave division multiplexing.