We investigated the polymer backbone dynamics of entangled and cross-linked polymer melts using dielectric spectroscopy (DS) and rheology. The entangled and cross-linked melts were prepared by end-linking linear and three armed poly(oxypropylene), respectively. Because of dipole inversion at the junctions DS is sensitive only to end-to-end distance fluctuations of the polymer sections between entanglements or cross-links. DS shows that the dynamics between covalent cross links and entanglements are identical. The dipole relaxation is strongly modified by end-linking.