Circuit switching network establishes a fixed bandwidth circuit (channel) between nodes before the users may communicate, as if the nodes were physically connected with an electrical circuit. The bit delay is constant during the connection, as opposed to packet switching, where packet queues may cause varying delay.
Each circuit cannot be used by other callers until the circuit is released and a new connection is set up. Even if no communication is taking place in a dedicated circuit then, that channel still remains unavailable to other users. Channels that are available for new calls to be set up are said to be idle. Telephone network is example of circuit switching system.
Virtual circuit switching is a packet switching technology that may emulate circuit switching, in the sense that the connection is established before any packets are transferred, and that packets are delivered in order.
Message switching was the precursor of packet switching, where messages were routed in their entirety, one hop at a time. It was first introduced in 1961. Nowadays, message switching systems are mostly implemented over packet-switched or circuit-switched data networks. E-mail is example of a message switching system.
Packet switching is a communications paradigm in which packets (discrete blocks of data) are routed between nodes over data links shared with other traffic. The term "packets" refers to the fact that the data stream from your computer is broken up into packets of about 200 bytes (on average), which are then sent out onto the network. Each packet contains a "header" with information necessary for routing the packet from source to destination. Each packet in a data stream is independent.
The main advantage of packet-switching is that it permits "statistical multiplexing" on the communications lines. The packets from many different sources can share a line, allowing for very efficient use of the fixed capacity. With current technology, packets are generally accepted onto the network on a first-come, first-served basis. If the network becomes overloaded, packets are delayed or discarded ("dropped").
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