2.11 Types of Switches

2.11 Types of Switches

There are two types of ATM switches, with the differences between each related to the type of header fields read for establishing cross-connections through the switch. A switch limited to reading and substituting VPI values is commonly referred to as a VP switch. This switch operates relatively fast. A switch that reads and substitutes both VPI and VCI values is commonly referred to as a virtual channel switch (VC switch). A VC switch generally has a lower cell operating rate than a VP switch as it must examine additional information in each cell header. You can consider a VP switch as being similar to a central office switch, while a VC switch would be similar to end office switches.