A packet is a stand-alone piece of data, like an individual piece of postal mail, and contains source, destination, and reassembly information. Packets are effectively anonymous; they are simply chunks of data, routed highly efficiently — though to all appearances indiscriminately — around a computer network, such as the Internet.
Unlike traditional circuit-switched telephone networks, packet-switched networks do not require a dedicated line to be allocated exclusively for the duration of each communication. Instead, individual data packets comprising a larger piece of information, such as an e-mail message, may be dispersed and sent across multiple paths before reaching their destination and then being reassembled.[1] This process is analogous to the way that the individual, numbered pages of a book might be separated from each other, addressed to the same location, forwarded through different post offices, and yet all still reach the same specified destination, where they could be reassembled into their original form.[2]
References
- ↑ See generally Jonathan E. Uechterlein & Philip J. Weiser, Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age 39-45 (paperback ed. 2007) (comparing circuit-switched and packet-switched networks).
- ↑ See id. at 42.