Another Wide Area Network: the Packet-Switched Network

This is an exmple of file transmission between two computers through a packet-switched TCP/IP network. When a computer A wants to send a file to a computer B located in the other end of network, the file to be sent is first broken into many pieces called packets. These packets are sent one by one through the network. Each packet carries identification that enables computers on the network to know whether it is sent to them or how to send it on to its correct destination. Packets may not follow all the same path trough the network. They may not even arrive in the same order they were sent, but they have enough information to allow the destination computer to reassamble the file in its original form.