To obtain the communication system attaining economical multimedia communication with a high frequency utilizing efficiency and immunity to noise by allowing a central station to select an exclusive communication channel or a common communication channel depending on a communication request from a terminal station.

A head end 1 being a central station and a terminal station 5 are connected via a trunk line cable 2, a relay amplifier 3 and a tap-off 4 and communication between terminal stations 5 is conducted via the central station 1, and the system has a private communication channel allocated between the terminal stations 5 and a common communication channel allocated multiplexingly simultaneously to plural terminal stations 5. The central station 1 selects the private communication channel or the common communication channel. Thus, the communication system is attained, in which various communication service from a telephone communication to high speed data communication are covered and economical multimedia communication with high frequency utilizing efficiency and immunity to noise is obtained.