CMPT376 Assignment 1: Final Draft

Naoya Makino: nmakino@sfu.ca 301117541

February 1st, 2010

The Internet Network: Circuit Switching, Packet Switching, and the Protocols

Sending emails, searching on the web, and chatting with friends, these are only
few examples of the services available on the Internet. In our society, the Internet is in
our daily life, and we do not even think of how it works. You may think as the Internet is
a “magic world” or “cloud” that connects people to people; it is a sky that sends and
receives messages between people back and forth. However, like anything else, the
Internet is nothing magical; it is a human made architecture that can be understood. It is a
network of networks. It is a worldwide network that connects millions of computers all
over the world and exchanges billions of data chunks over the network. Data chunks,
called packets, are transmitted over the networks in a number of ways. In most well-
known and commonly used telecommunication networks are packets switching and
circuit switching. These telecommunication networks ensure reliable data transmissions
by following Transmission Control Protocol (TCP): the protocol, a set of rules used by
computers to transmit messages, applied in data transmissions over the Internet.

The Internet is, essentially, a mesh of interconnected routers (a device that

connects two or more computers each other and to the Internet). In order to transmit data
through the networks, several communication's methods are most widely used: circuit
switching and packet switching. Circuit-switched networks are dedicated circuit per call
where’s packet switching is sending data through the networks in discrete “chunks”. In
circuit-switched networks, the path between a sender and a receiver must be reserved
before they start communicating. In contrast, a packet-switched network does not reserve
the path; in stead, it uses resources on demand. As an analogy, a circuit and a packet
switching can be described in two types of restaurants: one with reservations only and
one without reservations. For the one with reservations only, you need to call and reserve
a table before you go to the restaurant, but you would be able to be seated immediately
after the arrival. If you go to the restaurant which does not take reservations, on the other
hand, you do not need to call and reserve a table before you go, but you might have to
wait on a line to be served. This shows several the key features of these network
communications. Circuit switch requires call setups before start communicating, and it
may waste resources if it is not used by an owning call (a customer does not show up); in
packet switching, resources are used as needed. It is more efficient way of using resource
networks, but packets may have to wait for a link-use: congestion occurred. That is,
aggregate resource demand exceeds the link bandwidth amount available.

Circuit switching is used in telephone networks. In order to make a call, the

connection between senders and receivers must be reserved, called a circuit. That is, it
cannot be shared with other calls. Resource pieces would idle if there are not used by an
owning call. “This reservation allows the sender to transfer the data to receiver at the
guaranteed constant rate”[1]. There are two types of an implementation of a circuit in a
link: frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) or time-division multiplexing (TDM),
 CMPT376 Assignment 1: Final Draft
Naoya Makino: nmakino@sfu.ca 301117541
February 1st, 2010

referring the Figure 1. FDM shares the

frequency spectrum of a link with the
connections established across the link,
so “each circuit continuously gets a
fraction of bandwidth. With TDM,
each circuit gets all the bandwidth
periodically during brief intervals” [1].

Another telecommunication
method is called packet-switched
networks. Packets are pieces of data
carried by communication links and
packet switches. Each packet uses full
bandwidth of the link. In modern
packet-switched networks, these often
use store-and-forward transmission at
Figure 1 [1] above, Figure 2 [1] below the inputs to the links [1]. This means,
“the switch must receive the entire
packet before it can begin to transmit
the first bit of the packet onto the
outbound link” [1]. As an example,
consider a case of the figure 2 where
there are 3 links between the two hosts,
each of rate 1.5 bps, and it needs to
send 7.5 Mbits of packets from one host to another across a packet-switched network.
Assuming that there is no propagation delay, it then takes (3 * 7.5) / 1.5 = 15 seconds of a
transmission delay. This introduces a store-and-forward delay at each of the link along
the packet’s route; packets are queued, waiting for the link to be available. When
resource congestion occurs, a queue of packets is stacked in non-periodic order. This is
called statistical multiplexing. “The ordering is random or statistical because packets are
sent whenever they happen to be present at the link”[1]. Since the buffer spaces are
limited, it may be completely full with other packets, resulting in packet loss. Returning
to the previous restaurant’s analogy, store-and-forward delay is like a waiting time on a
line, and packet loss is when you have to leave the line because there are already too
many people waiting on the line for a table.

Described circuit switching and packet switching, there are advantages and
disadvantages of using these telecommunication networks. Circuit switching is suitable
for real-time services such as telephone calls and video conferencing as it does not have a
store-and-forward delays, and it is more reliable because of a dedicated line. In contrast
with circuit switching, packet switching is more efficient, simpler, and easier to
implement as it does not need to reserve the links before communications begin.
However, when excessive congestion occurs, there is a risk of packet delay and even a
chance of packet loss. Therefore, protocols are needed for a reliable data transmission
and for a congestion control.
 CMPT376 Assignment 1: Final Draft
Naoya Makino: nmakino@sfu.ca 301117541
February 1st, 2010

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the core protocols, used for a data
transmission over the Internet; TCP is a connection oriented and reliable protocol.
Connection-oriented communications establish end-to-end connections between sending
and receiving processes to ensure data transmissions. “Before one application process can
begin to send data to another, the two processes must first “handshake” with each other –
that is, they must send some preliminary segments to each other to establish the
parameters of the ensuring data transfer” [1]. TCP also ensures reliability in data
transmissions; there is no packet loss, and packets are in right order without duplication,
creating a “reliable data-transfer service” [1]. Another important TCP mechanism used to
provide for a reliable data-transfer service is a congestion control. Congestion occurs
when too many sources are sending too much data too fast for a network to handle.
Congestion results in packet loss (buffer overflow at routers) or long delays (queuing in
router buffer). The approach taken by TCP toward congestion control is end-end
congestion control; TCP sender should transmit data as fast as possible but without
congesting a network. In order to find the transmission rate just below a congestion
level, each TCP sender sets its own rate, based on implicit feedback: ACK and lost
segment. Acknowledge character (ACK) is a packet message used to acknowledge a
receipt of a packet. While TCP senders ACK segments receive (the network is not
congested), TCP senders increase the transmission rate. When packet loss occurs due to
congested network – lost segment, then the sender decreases the transmission rate.
Continuing this behavior, TCP ensures none of processes are sending too much data,
preventing a congested network.

In conclusion, although packet switching and circuit switching are both used in
today's telecommunication networks, more networks are shifted towards packet
switching. In particular, expensive overseas portion of a telephone call are often
converted to packet switching. This trend continues, and many of the protocols, such as
TCP, help ensure packet switching to be more reliable and efficient.
 CMPT376 Assignment 1: Final Draft
Naoya Makino: nmakino@sfu.ca 301117541
February 1st, 2010

Reference
[1] J.F Kurose and K.W. Ross, Computer Networking A Top-Down Approach Featuring
the Internet, Addison Wesley, p. 14-215.