1.7 Circuit Switching - 1.8 Packet Switching Notes

SWITCHING
What is Switching?
• In modern world, we are connected with everyone, either by internet or by a

telephone connection. In this huge network, when a phone call is made, or when
we access some website, the data get transferred from one network to the other
network.
• Whether you are inside a closed network or in a large network
segment, Switching is the most important mechanism which exchanges the
information between different networks or different computer(s). Switching
is the way which directs data or any digital information towards your network till
the end point.
SWITCHED NETWORK
Switched Network : Series of interlinked nodes, called switches.
Switches : Devices capable of creating temporary connections between two or

more devices link to the switches. Some of these are connected to the end
systems(computers, telephones), others used only for routing.
The end systems (communicating devices) are labeled A, B, C, D, and so on,

and the switches are labeled I, II, III, IV, and V. Each switch is connected to
multiple links.
Types of Switching Techniques
There are three type of switching techniques available: Circuit Switching,

Packet Switching and Message Switching. Circuit and Packet Switching are
the most popular among these three.
CIRCUIT SWITCHING
● A circuit-switched network consists of a set of switches connected by

physical links.
● A connection between two stations is a dedicated path made of one or
more links.
● However, each connection uses only one dedicated channel on each
link.
● Each link is normally divided into n channels by using Frequency Division

Multiplexing and Time Division Multiplexing.
● A circuit-switched network is made of a set of switches connected by

physical links, in which each link is divided into n c hannels.
Circuit switching takes place at the physical layer.

Before starting communication, the stations must make a reservation for the
resources to be used during the communication.
Circuit switching has three phases:

• Circuit establishment or Setup phase
• Transferring the data or Data transfer phase
• Circuit disconnect or Teardown phase
Setup Phase
Before the two parties (or multiple parties in a conference call) can
communicate, a dedicated circuit (combination of channels in links) needs to be
established.
The end systems are normally connected through dedicated lines to the
switches, so connection setup means creating dedicated channels between the
switches
Data Transfer Phase

After the establishment of the dedicated circuit (channels), the two parties can
transfer data.
Teardown Phase
When one of the parties needs to disconnect, a signal is sent to each switch to
release the resources.
Advantages of Circuit Switching
● The data rate is fixed and dedicated because the connection is established
using dedicated physical connection or circuits.
● As there are dedicated transmission routing paths involved, it is a good

choice for continuous transmission over a long duration.
● The data transmission delay is negligible. No waiting time is involved in

switches. So, the data gets transmitted without any prior delay in the
transmission. This is definitely a positive advantage of Circuit Switching
method.
Disadvantages of Circuit Switching
● Whether the communication channel is free or busy, the dedicated
channel could not be used for other data transmission.
● It requires more bandwidth, and continuous transmission offers wastage of
bandwidth when there is a silence period.
● It is highly inefficient when utilizing the system resource. We cannot use

the resource for other connection as it is allocated for the entire
conversation.
● It takes huge time during the establishment of physical links between

senders and receivers.
PACKET SWITCHING
● In packet switching, messages are divided into packets of fixed or variable

size.
● The size of packet is decided by the network and the governing protocol.
● Resource allocation for a packet is not done in packet switching.
● Resources are allocated on demand.
● The resource allocation is done on first-come, first-served basis.
● Each switching node has a small amount of buffer space to hold packets
temporarily. If the outgoing line is busy, the packet stays in queue until the
line becomes available.
Packet switching method uses two routing methods:
* Datagram Packet Switching
* Virtual Circuit Packet Switching

Datagram Packet Switching
● Connectionless Packet Switching
● Datagram packet switching is normally implemented in the network layer.
● In datagram network, each packet is routed independently through the

network.
● Each packet carries a header that contains the full information about the
destination.
When the switch receives the packet, the destination address in the header of
the packet is examined; the routing table is consulted to find the corresponding
port through which the packet should be forwarded.
Virtual Circuit Packet Switching

A source and destination have to go through three phases in a virtual
circuit packet switching:
I. Setup phase
ii. Data transfer phase
iii. Connection release phase
❖ Single route is chosen between source/destination.
❖ All packets take that route to reach destination.
❖ Uses virtual circuit identifier for routing.
A virtual circuit identifier (VCID) is a type of numeric identifier used to

distinguish between different virtual circuits in a
connection-oriented circuit-switched telecommunication network. It enables
a circuit-switched network to identify different virtual circuits/channels involved
in a device's data communication.
Advantages of Packet Switching
● Efficient in terms of Bandwidth.

● Transmission delay is minimum
● Missing packets can be detected by the destination.
● Cost-effective implementation.
○
● Reliable when busy path or links breakdown is detected in the network.

Packets can be transmitted by other links or can use a different path.

Disadvantages of Packet Switching
● Packet switching does not follow any particular order to transmit the
packet one by one.
● Packet missing occurs in large data transmission.
● Each packet needs to be encoded with sequence numbers, Receiver and
Senders address, and other information.
● Routing is complex in the nodes as packets can follow multiple paths.
When rerouting occurs for some reason, the delay in receiving the packets
is increased.
Difference Between Circuit Switching and Packet Switching
CIRCUIT SWITCHING PACKET SWITCHING

In circuit switching there are 3 phases In Packet switching directly data transfer takes
i) Connection Establishment., ii) Data place .
Transfer.
iii) Connection Released.
In circuit switching, each data unit know the In Packet switching, each data unit just know
entire path address which is provided by the the final destination address intermediate path
source is decided by the routers.
In Circuit switching, data is processed at In Packet switching, data is processed at all
source system only intermediate node including source system.
Delay between data units in circuit switching Delay between data units in packet switching is
is uniform. not uniform.
Resource reservation is the feature of circuit There is no resource reservation because
switching because path is fixed for data bandwidth is shared among users.
transmission.
Circuit switching is more reliable. Packet switching is less reliable.
Wastage of resources are more in Circuit Less wastage of resources as compared to
Switching Circuit Switching
It is not a store and forward technique. It is a store and forward technique.
Transmission of the data is done by the Transmission of the data is done not only by the
source source, but also by the intermediate routers
Congestion can occur during connection Congestion can occur during data transfer
establishment time phase
MESSAGE SWITCHING
Message switching is a connectionless network switching technique where the

entire message is routed from the source node to the destination node, one hop
at a time. It was a precursor of packet switching.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Message Switching

Advantages
● Sharing of communication channels ensures better bandwidth usage.
● It reduces network congestion due to store and forward method. Any
switching node can store the messages till the network is available.
● Broadcasting messages requires much less bandwidth than circuit
switching.
● Messages of unlimited sizes can be sent.
● It does not have to deal with out of order packets or lost packets as in
packet switching.
Disadvantages
● In order to store many messages of unlimited sizes, each intermediate
switching node requires large storage capacity.
● Store and forward method introduces delay at each switching node. This
renders it unsuitable for real time applications

1.7 Circuit Switching - 1.8 Packet Switching Notes

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SWITCHING

• In modern world, we are connected with everyone, either by internet or by a

Switches : Devices capable of creating temporary connections between two or

The end systems (communicating devices) are labeled A, B, C, D, and so on,

There are three type of switching techniques available: ​Circuit Switching,

● A circuit-switched network consists of a set of switches connected by

● Each link is normally divided into ​n ​channels by using Frequency Division

● A circuit-switched network is made of a set of switches connected by

Circuit switching takes place at the physical layer.

Circuit switching has three phases:

Data Transfer Phase

● As there are dedicated transmission routing paths involved, it is a good

● The data transmission delay is negligible. No waiting time is involved in

● It is highly inefficient when utilizing the system resource. We cannot use

● It takes huge time during the establishment of physical links between

● In packet switching, messages are divided into packets of fixed or variable

Packet switching method uses two routing methods:

* ​Datagram Packet Switching

*​ Virtual Circuit Packet Switching

● In datagram network, each packet is routed independently through the

Virtual Circuit Packet Switching

A ​virtual circuit identifier​ (VCID) is a type of numeric ​identifier​ used to

Advantages of Packet Switching

● Efficient in terms of Bandwidth.

● Reliable when busy path or links breakdown is detected in the network.

CIRCUIT SWITCHING PACKET SWITCHING

Message switching is a connectionless network switching technique where the

Advantages and Disadvantages of Message Switching

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There are three type of switching techniques available: Circuit Switching,

● Each link is normally divided into n channels by using Frequency Division

* Datagram Packet Switching

* Virtual Circuit Packet Switching

A virtual circuit identifier (VCID) is a type of numeric identifier used to