Comparison of overhead factors in message-switched and packet-switched networks

Overhead factors for data networks using message-switching or packet-switching techniques are defined and analysed. The transmission lines are assumed to have only random errors and the acknowledgments are handled on a ‘stop-and-wait’ strategy. For packet switching, the packet size used is such that, in each case, the overhead factor is minimised. Results show that the overheads for packet switching tend to be much higher than for message switching when the line error rates are low, i.e. better than 10−5. It is concluded that, although packet switching has several significant merits, these are achieved at the expense of a substantial increase in overheads.