I am starting a class for school. It’s a business computer networking course and we’re focusing on history of the internet (ARPANet, etc) right now. Our textbook keeps taking about packet-switching but the explanations are never fleshed out enough. It’s hidden behind CS vocabulary I don’t understand. Any help?
In: Technology
It’s from the long ago history of telephones.
With the very first telephones, you’d get a phone, and a small number of your other millionaire buddies would also get a phone. To call Buffy down the road, your servant would plug your phone into the wire that went to Buffy’s house.
Pretty soon, the obvious flaw (everyone needs a wire to everyone) was obvious, and they made “telephone switches”. Now, one person’s servant was called an operator and would sit at a “switch”. When you wanted Buffy, your servant would get the attention of the operator (by cranking a little crank which would ring a bell at the switch). The operator would make a little patch connection between your line and Buffies.
This means that yes, you had a unique line all of your own that went to the switch, and so did Buffy.
The key is that during your call, there’s essentially a wire running from your house all the way to Buffy’s.
With packet switching, it’s like you have a couple of wires, going to a couple of the switches, and the switches are all connected to together. And now they are called routers, because of course they are. And when you talk, every little bit of sound is called a packet gets a little address on it and gets sent on whatever router makes the most sense right at that moment. The packets all flow from one router to another, until they end up at Buffy’s house.
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