Design considerations are considered for optical time-division multiplexing in terms of bandwidth requirements for the modulators and switches for a particular multiplexing scheme and the corresponding drive signals are derived using a time-domain approach. It is shown that these requirements are stricter than expected from simple considerations. Different types of multiplexing schemes are analyzed and are shown to behave differently due to varying chirping properties; this chirping is also calculated. A comparison to nonmultiplexed systems is made