packet switching
termnetworkingISP & telecom
Forwarding data as independent packets that share links with everyone else's, instead of holding a dedicated path open for the duration of a conversation.
The alternative it replaced was circuit switching, where a call reserved a path end to end whether or not anything was being said. Packet switching wins whenever traffic is bursty, which is nearly always in data: the link is shared, the idle moments of one conversation carry another's, and capacity is sold many times over. The costs are the mirror image and they are permanent - no reservation means no guarantee, so delay varies, congestion is possible, and every quality-of-service mechanism since exists to claw back some of what the reservation used to provide for free.
Also known as: store and forward