circuit switching
termISP & telecomnetworking
Reserving a dedicated path end to end for the duration of a conversation, whether or not anything is being sent on it.
It is what the telephone network did, and its properties are the exact inverse of packet switching: guaranteed capacity, constant delay, no congestion - and a link that sits idle while nobody speaks. That waste is affordable for voice and ruinous for data, where traffic arrives in bursts. The distinction still shapes arguments about quality of service: every attempt to give a packet network hard guarantees is an attempt to buy back something circuit switching had, and to pay for it in complexity instead of in reserved capacity.
Also known as: circuit