Chapter 7
Local Area Network Technology
In the previous chapters, we looked at the use of circuit-switched networks. In circuit-switched networks, a dedicated path is carved out of a larger network to form a communications path. This path, or circuit, is set up by signaling, created when the communication is needed and terminated when the communication is ended. During this time, the path is exclusively the user’s. A telephone call is a good example of the larger network referred to earlier. The public switched telephone network (PSTN) allocates an exclusive path for your call. When the caller hangs up the phone, the circuit is terminated and put back in the pool for the next caller to use.
The circuit-switched network is not only very effective ...
