Question 1

Difference between packet switching and circuit switching

Circuit Switching

Physical path between source and destination

All packets use same path
Reserve the entire bandwidth in advance
No store and forward transmission
Suitable for bulk data transfer
Take time in establishing the connection
No alternative route is possible in case of connection failure
Charge is based on distance and time but not on data
Used for telephone conversation

Advantages

Fixed delays, because of the dedicated circuit

Guaranteed continuous service, also because of the dedicated circuit
Circuit is dedicated to the call no interference, no sharing

Disadvantages

idle circuits are not used

Difficult to support variable data rates and is not efficient for burst
traffic .
It takes a relatively long time to set up the circuit

Packet Switching

No physical Path
Packet travel independently
Does not reserve
No bandwidth wastage
Support store and forward transmission
Not suitable
No delay in establishing a connection
Alternate routing of packets is possible
Charge is based on data
Is used by the internet

Advantages

can provide variable data rates

better for "bursty" traffic
High data transmission quality because the data distribution is
checked and error detection is employed during data transmission

Disadvantages

Packets arriving in wrong order and Variable delays

Packets may be lost on their route
Switching nodes requires more processing power and require large
amount of RAM

Question 2
Processes of the OSI transport layer
The transport layer provides:

Message segmentation: accepts a message from the (session) layer

above it, splits the message into smaller units (if not already small
enough), and passes the smaller units down to the network layer. The

transport layer at the destination station reassembles the message.

Message acknowledgment: provides reliable end-to-end message

delivery with acknowledgments.

Message traffic control: tells the transmitting station to "back-off" once

no message buffers space unit out there.

Session multiplexing: multiplexes several message streams, or
sessions onto one logical link and keeps track of that messages belong
to which sessions.

Question 3
How the IP layer keep the packets from getting misplaced

Sender level: The IP adds a header of control information to each

segment received from the TCP in order to form the IP datagram or IP

packet. The data can be fragmented to smaller packets if necessary.

Router level: And indicates the order in the fragment offset field of

the header. Then it is passed down to the network access layer.

Receiver level: Upon receipt the IP layer at destination will use the
fragment offset for reassembly