Circuit switching is a network configuration operates almost the same way as the telephone system works. In this network configuration, two network endpoints are connected via a dedicated physical path for the duration of the dedicated connection. Before communication to occur, there needs to be a complete end-to-end channel. Regular telephone service makes use of circuit switching.
There are three phase of circuit switching which are as follows:
Circuit Establishment:
A dedicated physical route is established between the sender and the receiver. The path may include a number of intermediate switching centers.
Transfer of Data:
After the establishment or setup phase, data is transferred through the dedicated path.
Circuit Disconnect:
Once the data transfer is done, the circuit is disconnected from one of the ends. All the intermediate links are disconnected in this phase.
Circuit Switching Example:
- Analog telephone network
- Optical mesh network
- Physical switch telephone network(PSTN)
Characteristics of Circuit switching:
- It is fixed amount of data is transferred.
- Circuit switching is capable of handling both data as well as voice signals.
- The data is process at the source end.
- It implemented at the physical layer.
- A dedicated connection is required for circuit switching.
- It is usually used for voice communication.
- Space division switching, the paths in the circuit are separated from each other.
- The main reason of the space division was for the analog network.
- It is mostly used for both analog and digital switching.
- It is mostly find application like digital communication and semiconductors gates.
- Switching in space division has a great capacity and speed. as well as non-blocking switches.
- In the time division switching method, the number of connections travels along the same trunk line.
- Time division multiplexing is used to divide the streams into segments and ensure that the segments are supplied at specific times.
- The detection of the elements happens with the help of de-multiplexer.
Following are the Advantages of Circuit Switching:
- Circuit switching has fixed bandwidth
- This type of switching the communication channel is dedicated.
- Circuit switching are more secure than packet switching.
- This types of switching reordering is not required.
- It also applied for data traffic.
- Circuits switching takes long time to establish connection approx 10 seconds.
- They required more bandwidth in setting up dedicated channels.
- It need to requires a dedicated circuit between the communicating devices, so circuit switching is not flexible.
- This type of switching technology the establishment time is high.
- Circuit switching is expensive technology as compared to other type of switching technology.
- Circuit switching is not suitable for bursty traffic.
Circuit Switch Applications:
- It is mostly used in mobile communication.
- This type of switching is widely used for long distance communication is required for long period of time.
- Public switch telephone network(PSTN).
- It is used in Landline telephones.
- It is communally used in private wide area network.
- Internet via dial up service which in turn uses landline cables.
Differences between Circuit Switching and Packet Switching
- In circuit switching there is no concept of store and forward transmission, whereas in packet switching network, each node may store incoming packets and forward them after use.
- Circuit switching is more reliable whereas the packet switching is not more reliable.
- In circuit switching, bandwidth is fixed because it is reserved in advance, whereas in packet switching it require bandwidth is dynamic because it can be released as it is needed.
- Circuit switching is mainly preferred for voice transmission, on the other hand Packet switching is mainly preferred for data transmission.