Packet switching

• Packet switching is a special way of switching network nodes, which was specially created for the best transmission of computer traffic 

• Experiments on the development of the very first computer networks, which were based on the channel switching technique, showed that this type of switching does not provide an opportunity to obtain high throughput of a computer network. 

• When switching packets, all messages transmitted by the network user are split at the source node into relatively small parts, called packets.  Each packet is provided with a header that specifies the address information needed to deliver the packet to the destination node, as well as the package number that will be used by the destination node to assemble the message.