Packet switching, also known as packet switching, divides the data communicated by the user into smaller, equal-length data segments, and adds the necessary control information to the front of each segment as the segment's header, so that each segment with a header constitutes a packet. The header specifies the address to which the packet is to be sent, and when the switch receives the packet, it will forward the packet to the destination according to the address information in the header, and this process is packet switching. A communication network capable of packet switching is called a packet-switched network.
The essence of packet switching is store-and-forward, which temporarily stores the received packets, queues them up on the destination route, and then sends the information to the corresponding route when it can send the information to complete the forwarding. Its store-and-forward process is the process of packet switching.