Packet-Switching
A core network transmission technique that involves splitting information (voice or data) into packets (a few KB each) which are then routed by the network between different destinations based on addressing data within each packet.
Packet switching is attractive for mobile access because radio spectrum is used only when data is actually being transmitted. Use of packet-switched network can therefore be charged according to the volume of data transferred and not to any notion of time spent online. Mobile phones with packet-switched communication appear to be "always connected" to the data network, whereas in the case of circuit-switched connections, setup time takes around 30 seconds to connect from a mobile phone to an ISP.
