What is the difference between circuit switching vs virtual circuit switching data communication?
Thanks for this A2A. So before the 1980's the entire physical bandwidth was used from node A to node B. In those days, a node would be identified in the application layer only.
Years later, data carrier companies would use packet switching so that the physical bandwidth of fast data equipment can be sold to more and more users. Also, the data nodes started to be identified by network address.
Say, one day cybersecurity became a concern and the data carriers offered a way to &quot;keep out&quot; non-members of a certain &quot;group of users&quot;. This led to the virtual circuit which is, in most cases, is a virtual private circuit in a VPN (virtual private network). The users in a common VPN group choose not to access &quot;external&quot; networks and hackers from (virtually) external networks are not able to gain access into the VPN.