Packet Switching

The alternative to circuit switching is packet switching, shown in Fig. With this technology, packets are
sent as soon as they are available. There is no need to set up a dedicated path in advance, unlike with
circuit switching. It is up to routers to use store-and-forward transmission to send each packet on its
way to the destination on its own. This procedure is unlike circuit switching, in which the result of the
connection setup is the reservation of bandwidth all the way from the sender to the receiver. All data on
the circuit follows this path. Among other properties, having all the data follow the same path means
that it cannot arrive out of order. With packet switching there is no fixed path, so different packets can
follow different paths, depending on network conditions at the time they are sent, and they may arrive
out of order. Packet-switching networks place a tight upper limit on the size of packets. This ensures
that no user can monopolize any transmission line for very long (e.g., many milliseconds), so that
packet-switched networks can handle interactive traffic. It also reduces delay since the first packet of a
long message can be forwarded before the second one has fully arrived. However, the store-and-
forward delay of accumulating a packet in the router’s memory before it is sent on to the next router
exceeds that of circuit switching. With circuit switching, the bits just flow through the wire continuously.

Packet and circuit switching also differ in other ways. Because no bandwidth is reserved with packet
switching, packets may have to wait to be forwarded. This introduces queuing delay and congestion if
many packets are sent at the same time. On the other hand, there is no danger of getting a busy signal
and being unable to use the network. Thus, congestion occurs at different times with circuit switching
(at setup time) and packet switching (when packets are sent).

If a circuit has been reserved for a particular user and there is no traffic, its bandwidth is wasted. It
cannot be used for other traffic. Packet switching does not waste bandwidth and thus is more efficient
from a system perspective. Understanding this trade-off is crucial for comprehending the difference
between circuit switching and packet switching. The trade-off is between guaranteed service and
wasting resources versus not guaranteeing service and not wasting resources.

Packet switching is more fault tolerant than circuit switching. In fact, that is why it was invented. If a
switch goes down, all of the circuits using it are terminated and no more traffic can be sent on any of
them. With packet switching, packets can be routed around dead switches.

A final difference between circuit and packet switching is the charging algorithm. With circuit switching,
charging has historically been based on distance and time. For mobile phones, distance usually does not
play a role, except for international calls, and time plays only a coarse role (e.g., a calling plan with 2000
free minutes costs more than one with 1000 free minutes and sometimes nights or weekends are
cheap). With packet switching, connect time is not an issue, but the volume of traffic is. For home users,
ISPs usually charge a flat monthly rate because it is less work for them and their customers can
understand this model, but backbone carriers charge regional networks based on the volume of their
traffic.
The differences are summarized in Fig. 2-44. Traditionally, telephone networks have used circuit
switching to provide high-quality telephone calls, and computer networks have used packet switching
for simplicity and efficiency. However, there are notable exceptions. Some older computer networks
have been circuit switched under the covers (e.g., X.25) and some newer telephone networks use packet
switching with voice over IP technology. This looks just like a standard telephone call on the outside to
users, but inside the network packets of voice data are switched. This approach has let upstarts market
cheap international calls via calling cards, though perhaps with lower call quality than the incumbents.

Circuit Switching
Conceptually, when you or your computer places a telephone call, the switching equipment within the
telephone system seeks out a physical path all the way from your telephone to the receiver’s telephone.
This technique is called circuit switching. It is shown schematically in Fig. 2-42(a). Each of the six
rectangles represents a carrier switching office (end office, toll office, etc.). In this example, each office
has three incoming lines and three outgoing lines. When a call passes through a switching office, a
physical connection is (conceptually) established between the line on which the call came in and one of
the output lines, as shown by the dotted lines. In the early days of the telephone, the connection was
made by the operator plugging a jumper cable into the input and output sockets. In fact, a surprising
little story is associated with the invention of automatic circuit switching equipment. It was invented by
a 19th-century Missouri undertaker named Almon B. Strowger. Shortly after the telephone was
invented, when someone died, one of the survivors would call the town operator and say ‘‘Please
connect me to an undertaker.’’ Unfortunately for Mr. Strowger, there were two undertakers in his town,
and the other one’s wife was the town telephone operator. He quickly saw that either he was going to
have to invent automatic telephone switching equipment or he was going to go out of business. He
chose the first option. For nearly 100 years, the circuit-switching equipment used worldwide was known
as Strowger gear. (History does not record whether the now-unemployed switchboard operator got a
job as an information operator, answering questions such as ‘‘What is the phone number of an
undertaker?’’)

The model shown in Fig is highly simplified, of course, because parts of the physical path between the
two telephones may, in fact, be microwave or fiber links onto which thousands of calls are multiplexed.
Nevertheless, the basic idea is valid: once a call has been set up, a dedicated path between both ends
exists and will continue to exist until the call is finished.

An important property of circuit switching is the need to set up an end-to-end path before any data can
be sent. The elapsed time between the end of dialing and the start of ringing can easily be 10 sec, more
on long-distance or international calls. During this time interval, the telephone system is hunting for a
path, as shown in Fig. 2-43(a). Note that before data transmission can even begin, the call request signal
must propagate all the way to the destination and be acknowledged. For many computer applications
(e.g., point-of-sale credit verification), long setup times are undesirable.
As a consequence of the reserved path between the calling parties, once the setup has been completed,
the only delay for data is the propagation time for the electromagnetic signal, about 5 msec per 1000
km. Also as a consequence of the established path, there is no danger of congestion—that is, once the
call has been put through, you never get busy signals. Of course, you might get one before the
connection has been established due to lack of switching or trunk capacity.