Editing Circuit switching (section)

== Description ==
The defining example of a circuit-switched network is the early analogue [[telephone network]]. When a [[Telephone call|call]] is made from one telephone to another, switches within the [[telephone exchange]]s create a continuous wire circuit between the two telephones for as long as the call lasts.

In circuit switching, the bit delay is constant during a connection (as opposed to packet switching, where packet queues may cause varying and potentially indefinitely long [[packet transfer delay]]s). No circuit can be degraded by competing users because it is protected from use by other callers until the circuit is released and a new connection is set up. Even if no actual communication is taking place, the channel remains reserved and protected from competing users.

While circuit switching is commonly used for connecting voice circuits, the concept of a dedicated path persisting between two communicating parties or nodes can be extended to signal content other than voice. The advantage of using circuit switching is that it provides for continuous transfer without the overhead associated with [[Network packet|packets]], making maximal use of available bandwidth for that communication. One disadvantage is that it can be relatively inefficient because unused capacity guaranteed to a connection cannot be used by other connections on the same network. In addition, calls cannot be established or will be dropped if the circuit is broken.

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