Data Communications and

Networking

Chapter 10
Circuit Switching and Packet Switching

References:
Book Chapter 10.1 , 10.2, 10.5
Data and Computer Communications, 8th edition
By William Stallings

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Overview
• Networks are used to interconnect many devices.
• We have checked with Local Area Networks.
• Now, wide area networks
— Since the invention of the telephone, circuit switching has
been the dominant technology for voice communications.
— Since 1970, packet switching has evolved substantially for
digital data communications. It was designed to provide a more
efficient facility than circuit switching for bursty data traffic.
• Two types of packet switching:
– Datagram (such as today’s Internet)
– Virtual circuit (such as Frame Relay, ATM)

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Switched Communications Networks
• Long distance transmission between stations (called
“end devices”) is typically done over a network of
switching nodes.
• Switching nodes do not concern with content of data.
Their purpose is to provide a switching facility that will
move the data from node to node until they reach their
destination (the end device).
• A collection of nodes and connections forms a
communications network.
• In a switched communications network, data entering
the network from a station are routed to the
destination by being switched from node to node.

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Switched Communications Networks
• Long distance transmission between stations (called
“end devices”) is typically done over a network of
switching nodes.
• Switching nodes do not concern with content of data.
Their purpose is to provide a switching facility that will
move the data from node to node until they reach their
destination (the end device).
• A collection of nodes and connections forms a
communications network.
• In a switched communications network, data entering
the network from a station are routed to the
destination by being switched from node to node.

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Simple Switching Network

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Switching Nodes
• Nodes may connect to other nodes, or to some
stations.
• Network is usually partially connected
—However, some redundant connections are desirable
for reliability
• Two different switching technologies
—Circuit switching
—Packet switching

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Circuit Switching
• Circuit switching:
— There is a dedicated communication path between two stations
(end-to-end)
— The path is a connected sequence of links between network
nodes. On each physical link, a logical channel is dedicated to
the connection.
• Communication via circuit switching has three phases:
— Circuit establishment (link by link)
• Routing & resource allocation (FDM or TDM)
— Data transfer
— Circuit disconnect
• Deallocate the dedicated resources
• The switches must know how to find the route to the
destination and how to allocate bandwidth (channel) to
establish a connection.

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Circuit Switching Properties
• Inefficiency
— Channel capacity is dedicated for the whole duration of a
connection
— If no data, capacity is wasted
• Delay
— Long initial delay: circuit establishment takes time
— Low data delay: after the circuit establishment, information is
transmitted at a fixed data rate with no delay other than the
propagation delay. The delay at each node is negligible.
• Developed for voice traffic (public telephone network)
but can also applied to data traffic.
— For voice connections, the resulting circuit will enjoy a high
percentage of utilization because most of the time one party or
the other is talking.
— But how about data connections?

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 Public Circuit Switched
Network

Subscribers: the devices that attach to the network.

Subscriber loop: the link between the subscriber and the network.
Exchanges: the switching centers in the network.
End office: the switching center that directly supports subscribers.
Trunks: the branches between exchanges. They carry multiple voice-frequency
circuits using either FDM or synchronous TDM.
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Packet Switching Principles
• Problem of circuit switching
—designed for voice service
—Resources dedicated to a particular call
—For data transmission, much of the time the
connection is idle (say, web browsing)
—Data rate is fixed
• Both ends must operate at the same rate during the entire
period of connection
• Packet switching is designed to address these
problems.

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Basic Operation
• Data are transmitted in short packets
— Typically at the order of 1000 bytes
— Longer messages are split into series of packets
— Each packet contains a portion of user data plus some control
info
• Control info contains at least
— Routing (addressing) info, so as to be routed to the intended
destination
— Recall the content of an IP header!
• store and forward
— On each switching node, packets are received, stored briefly
(buffered) and passed on to the next node.

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Use of Packets

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Advantages of Packet Switching
• Line efficiency
— Single node-to-node link can be dynamically shared by many
packets over time
— Packets are queued up and transmitted as fast as possible
• Data rate conversion
— Each station connects to the local node at its own speed
• In circuit-switching, a connection could be blocked if
there lacks free resources. On a packet-switching
network, even with heavy traffic, packets are still
accepted, by delivery delay increases.
• Priorities can be used
— On each node, packets with higher priority can be forwarded
first. They will experience less delay than lower-priority packets.

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Packet Switching Technique
• A station breaks long message into packets
• Packets are sent out to the network
sequentially, one at a time
• How will the network handle this stream of
packets as it attempts to route them through
the network and deliver them to the intended
destination?
—Two approaches
• Datagram approach
• Virtual circuit approach

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Datagram
• Each packet is treated independently, with no
reference to packets that have gone before.
—Each node chooses the next node on a packet’s path.
• Packets can take any possible route.
• Packets may arrive at the receiver out of order.
• Packets may go missing.
• It is up to the receiver to re-order packets and
recover from missing packets.
• Example: Internet

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Datagram

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Virtual Circuit
• In virtual circuit, a preplanned route is
established before any packets are sent, then all
packets follow the same route.
• Each packet contains a virtual circuit
identifier instead of destination address, and
each node on the preestablished route knows
where to forward such packets.
—The node need not make a routing decision for each
packet.
• Example: X.25, Frame Relay, ATM

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 Virtual
Circuit

A route between stations is

set up prior to data transfer.
All the data packets then
follow the same route.
But there is no dedicated
resources reserved for the
virtual circuit! Packets need
to be stored-and-forwarded.

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Virtual Circuits v Datagram
• Virtual circuits
— Network can provide sequencing (packets arrive at the same
order) and error control (retransmission between two nodes).
— Packets are forwarded more quickly
• Based on the virtual circuit identifier
• No routing decisions to make
— Less reliable
• If a node fails, all virtual circuits that pass through that node fail.
• Datagram
— No call setup phase
• Good for bursty data, such as Web applications
— More flexible
• If a node fails, packets may find an alternate route
• Routing can be used to avoid congested parts of the network

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Comparison of
communication
switching
techniques