06 Oct 2022

Packet Switching

  • At the destination packets belonging to the same file have to be reassembled
  • packet switching uses Store and Forward technique → packet switches must receive a packet in its entirety before forwarding to the next switch in the network.
  • Packet-Switched networks were designed to overcome the weaknesses of circuit-switched networks since circuit-switched networks were not very effective for small messages.

Advantages

  • more reliable thanks to Store and Forward
  • more fault tolerant ← packets may follow different path in case a link is down
  • cheaper to implement

Disadvantages

  • doesn’t give packets in order → need to provide sequence numbers for each packet
  • beneficial only for small messages, circuit switching better for large data