A method of distributing data over a network first developed by Leonard Kleinrock between 1959 and 1962, that was used on ARPANET. In packet switching, information is broken into small segments of data known as packets and then reassembled when received at the destination. Packet switching helps prevent any small information sent after larger information from having to wait until the larger information is sent. When information is broken into packets, packet size and speed of the line determines how long it takes packets to travel to their destination.

In the first example above, if your data was number 5, you’d wait for 1, 2, 3, and 4 (FIFO) to complete before any data was sent. However, with packet switching information is broken into packets, so with a small amount of information you only needed to wait a short amount of time. In the second example above, it would take the number 1 longer to complete because it’s bigger, which means it’s broken into more packets. However, because number 5 is smaller it would complete faster with fewer packets.

Network terms, Packet

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