Frame Relay
termnetworkingISP & telecom
Stands for: Frame Relay (packet-switched WAN)
The packet-switched WAN service that replaced X.25 and defined enterprise connectivity in the 1990s and 2000s.
Frame Relay descends directly from X.25 (both trace to the 1976 packet-switching work) but strips out the per-hop error correction X.25 needed on noisy analog lines, betting on cleaner digital links for speed. Sites bought virtual circuits (identified by DLCI) with a committed information rate (CIR) instead of a mesh of leased lines. It was the WAN workhorse until MPLS and IP VPNs displaced it - the service a generation of enterprise routers was built to speak.
Also known as: frame relay, dlci, pvc, cir