Advantages and disadvantages of Circuit Switching type
This page covers advantages and disadvantages of circuit switching (CS) type. It mentions circuit switching advantages or benefits and circuit switching disadvantages or drawbacks. It provides links on difference between circuit switching and packet switching.
What is Circuit Switching?
Introduction:
The network in which dedicated channel (or circuit) is established between the calling and called users
before the conversation between them.
Moreover the channel is reserved between the users till the connection is active.
The classic example of circuit switched network is telephone system in which links or wires or frequencies
are available between the users of the system for each call.

For half duplex communication, one channel is allocated and for full duplex communication,
two channels are allocated. The circuit switching network is mainly used for voice communication
which requires real time services without any much delay.
The network requires only call set up delay before the conversation.
Overload or high traffic on the network may lead to blockage of calls or dropped calls.
It reserves fixed bandwidth for the call conversation to take place.
Refer circuit switching vs packet switching which mentions difference between circuit switching and packet switching types.
Benefits or advantages of circuit switching
Following are the benefits or advantages of circuit switching type:
➨As there is very less delay for the call to be established and also during the
conversation, the circuit switching network is widely used for realtime voice services
throughtout the world since years. There is almost no waiting time at voice switches used
for the call.
➨It will have realistic voice communication and consecutively
speaking persons are easily identified due to higher sampling rates used.
➨Once the connection is established between two parties, it will be available till
end of the conversation. This guarantees reliable connection in terms of constant
data rate and availability of resources (Bandwidth, channels etc.). Hence it is used for long distance and long duration
calls without any sort of tiredness.
➨No loss of packets or out of order
packets here as this is connection oriented network unlike packet switched network.
➨The forwarding of information is based on time or frequency slot
assignments and hence there is no need to examine the header as in the case of
packet switching network. As there is no header requirement, there is low overhead in
circuit switching network.
Drawbacks or disadvantages of circuit switching
Following are the disadvantages of circuit switching type:
➨As is it designed for voice traffic, it is not suitable for data transmission.
➨The channels and bandwidth used in the connection are not available till the
convesation or call is broken. Due to this, even if they are not utilized, they can not be
used for any other purpose (e.g. connections). Hence circuit switching is inefficient in terms of
resource utilization (i.e. channels, bandwidth etc.). Moreover due to this, if there are many users than the available channels,
it leads to dropped calls or calls not being established.
➨The connection requires call setup delay and it is not instantaneous.
This means there is no communication until connection is established and resources are
available.
➨It is more expensive compare to other techniques due to
dedicated path requirement. Consecutively, the call rates are also higher.
Also refer advantages and disadvantages of packet switching>> and message switching>> types.
Advantages and Disadvantages of other wireless technologies
What is Difference between
circuit switching vs packet switching
packet switching vs message switching
circuit switched call vs packet switched call
Networking related Links
• Basics of OSI and TCP-IP Layers • Circuit Switched Call vs Packet Switched Call • LAN vs WAN vs MAN • What is Hub • What is Switch • What is Bridge • What is Router • What is Gateway • TCP-IP Packet format • ARP Protocol format