Packet switching

In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data that is transmitted over a digital network into packets.

Composed of a header and a payload: A header is used by networking hardware to direct packets to its destination, A payload is the thing extracted after it has reached its destination (thanks to the header)

The workstation creates a packet, and stamps it with the destination's IP Address and forwards it to a router, the router's job is to find out how to get the packet to the desired destination. Breaking communication down into packets allows the same information to be shared amongst many users in a network. A type of small network where packets (small units of data) are routed through a network based on the destination address contained in each packet.

“A data packet is a unit of data made into a single package that travels along a given network path. Data packets are used in Internet Protocol (IP) transmissions for data that navigates the Web, and in other kinds of networks.”

Packet Switching Media

• 

  This animation illustrates a network model in which consecutive packets between hosts take differing routes. Out-of-order delivery is, however, detrimental to the performance of several network protocols, including TCP, so the Internet attempts to route packets associated with the same data stream along the same path most of the time.

• 

  The "message block", designed by Paul Baran in 1962 and refined in 1964, is the first proposal of a data packet.

• 

  Packet-switching cost performance trends, 1960-1980.