Data Communications and

Networking

Circuit Switching and Packet

Switching

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Overview
• Networks are used to interconnect many devices.
• 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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Circuit Switching Example

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Circuit Switching
• A Circuit switching network is made of a set of switches
connected by physical links,in which each link is divided
into n channels.

• As shown in figure when end system A needs to request a

connection to M that must be accepted by all switches as
well as by M itself. This is called as setup phase.

• A circuit [channel] is reserved on each link, and the

combination of circuits or [channels] is established, data
transfer can takes place.

• After all data have been transferred, the circuits are torn
down.

• Circuit switching takes place at the physical layer.

• Before starting communication, the stations must take a

reservation for the resources to be used during the
communication.
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• Data transferred between the two stations are not
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:
— Setup phase.
• Routing & resource allocation (FDM or TDM)
— Data transfer
— Circuit disconnect
• Deallocate the dedicated resources

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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
• 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. 11
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 13
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 pre established
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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Source-Destination data transfer in virtual
circuit network

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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 18
Delay in circuit switching

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Delay in Datagram

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Delay in virtual circuit network

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