Save your seat for Streaming Media NYC this May. Register Now!

Circuit Switching

A communications technology in which a dedicated channel (or circuit) is established for the duration of a transmission. The most common circuit-switching network is the telephone system, which links together wire segments to create a single unbroken line for each telephone call. Circuit-switching is ideal when data must be transmitted quickly and must arrive in the same order in which it's sent, for example live audio and video.