Abstract: A telecommunication system comprising an existing node with at least an existing switch with physical inlets and a local address space for addressing said physical inlets. At least one additional switch is added to the system, one of said additional switches residing in node that is external to the existing node. The additional switch or switches in the external node have also physical inlets and a local address space or spaces for addressing its switch inlets. A global address space is created which comprises at least the local address spaces of the existing switch and said one additional switch in the external node. The existing node has a connection handler for controlling the existing switch in the existing node and said one additional switch in the external node using the global address space (FIG. 2).