Circuit Switching

Currently there is a considerable interest in the development of digital communication techniques. This interest is due to the development of distributed processing concepts,1,2,3to changing regulatory policies of the US Government (the Carterfone decision and subsequent FCC rulings), and to the development of large networks.4 One widely used communication technique that has tremendous growth potential is circuit switching. There are two primary reasons for computer-oriented people to be interested in circuit switching. First, the computer plays a major role in the control and implementation of a circuit switch.5 Second, circuit switches have been used as the interconnection structure for systems containing (or hypothesized to contain) a multiplicity of processing elements.2,5,6