Difference between Circuit Switching and Packet Switching

• Difficulty Level : Easy
• Last Updated : 27 Sep, 2021

Circuit SwitchingPacket SwitchingIn circuit switching there are 3 phases: 
i) Connection Establishment. 
ii) Data Transfer. 
iii) Connection Released.In Packet switching directly data transfer takes place.In circuit switching, each data unit know the entire path address which is provided by the source.In Packet switching, each data unit just know the final destination address intermediate path is decided by the routers.In Circuit switching, data is processed at source system onlyIn Packet switching, data is processed at all intermediate node including source system.Delay between data units in circuit switching is uniform.Delay between data units in packet switching is not uniform.Resource reservation is the feature of circuit switching because path is fixed for data transmission.There is no resource reservation because bandwidth is shared among users.Circuit switching is more reliable.Packet switching is less reliable.Wastage of resources are more in Circuit SwitchingLess wastage of resources as compared to Circuit SwitchingIt is not a store and forward technique.It is a store and forward technique.Transmission of the data is done by the source.Transmission of the data is done not only by the source, but also by the intermediate routers.Congestion can occur during the connection establishment phase, because there might be a case where a request is being made for a channel but the channel is already occupied.Congestion can occur during data transfer phase, large number of packets comes in no time. 

Circuit switching is not convenient for handling bilateral traffic.Packet switching is suitable for handling bilateral traffic.In Circuit switching, charge depend on time and distance, not on traffic in the network.In Packet switching, charge is based on the number of bytes and connection time.Recording of packet is never possible in circuit switching.Recording of packet is possible in packet switching.In Circuit Switching there is a physical path between the source and the destinationIn Packet Switching there is no physical path between the source and the destinationCircuit Switching does not support store and forward transmissionPacket Switching supports store and forward transmission