Difference between Circuit Switching and Packet Switching
Circuit switching: Circuit switched network is considered as connection oriented networks. A dedicated channel needs to be established from source to destination before the entire message is transferred. Here, sender and receiver both need to agree to establish the connection. Source sends a set up request to the receiver sends acknowledgments to the sender in the opposite directions. After that, data is transferred between them.
Packet switching: Packet switching is considered as connectionless networks. There is no need to establish dedicated channel from the source to destination. Here, the message is divided into a number of packets which can also be called datagram’s. Packets can travel individually and independently from source to destination.
| Circuit Switching | Packet Switching |
|---|---|
| There are 3 phases in circuit switched network. They are: i) Connection Establishment ii) Data Transfer iii) Connection Teardown. | There is only data transfer phase available in packet switched network. |
| In circuit switching, entire path address is known by each data unit because of establishing a dedicated channel. | Here, routers decide the intermediate path because there is no dedicated channel. Final destination address is only known by the data unit. |
| Considered as connection oriented service. | Considered as connection less service. |
| Initially, voice communication was the purpose for the design of circuit switching. | Initially, data transmission was the purpose for the design packet switching. |
| Inflexible transmission because the entire message travel the same path. So, specific routes need to be reserved. | Flexible transmission because each packets are travelled independently. Resources do not need to be reserved here. |
| Implemented at physical layer. | Implemented at network layer. |
| There are 2 techniques available in circuit switching. They are: i) Space Division Switching ii) Time Division Switching. | There are 2 techniques available in packet switching. They are: i) Datagram Approach ii) Virtual Circuit Approach. |
| Receiver receives the packets in the order which was sent from the source. | Receiver receives the packets out the order which was sent from the source. It is the responsibility of the receiver to reassemble the packets. |
| Delay between data units is uniform in circuit switching. | Delay between data units is not uniform in packet switching. |
| Resources need to be reserved here because of dedicated data path. | Resources does not need to be reserved here as there is no dedicated path here. |
| Considered as more reliable network. | Considered as less reliable network. |
| Wastage of large amount of resources. | Resources are not wasted here less amount of wastage. |
| Can be considered as store & forward technique. | Can be considered as store & forward technique. |
| Same path is followed by all packets. | Packet are travel independently. |
| Data transfer takes place after the connection establishment. | Each packet follows dynamic routes for reaching the destination. |
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Contributed By: Romana Rahman Ema